In news of art with a literary connection, it’s worth noting The Shadows Took Shape, currently up at the Studio Museum in Harlem. If you haven’t read it already, Chase Quinn makes the case for why you should check this out at Hyperallergic. Alternately: do you like the idea of art that takes an aesthetic cue from the likes of Sun Ra, Octavia E. Butler, and Samuel R. Delany? Then this is an exhibit to which you should pay a […]
Posted by Tobias Carroll This is the first of two lists of the books I read this year that I most enjoyed. This one focuses on books released this year; the other will focus around books that I encountered for the first time in 2011 that first entered the world in preceding years. [fragments] Dana Spiotta’s Stone Arabia is an intentionally messy book with shifting and sometimes overlapping narrators and a sense of history, both familial and musical, looming in […]
“While we are beyond delighted at the success of Go the Fuck to Sleep, my life and life at Akashic has not changed that much…” MobyLives checks in with Akashic’s Johnny Temple. Thomas Ross looks at Floyd Skloot’s short story collection Cream of Kohlrabi: “The standouts, which are immersive and emotionally gripping, are that way because Skloot writes such terribly honest characters. It’s striking how warmly and humanely Skloot writes about loss.” At Sound of the City, Nick Murray reports on last night’s […]
Posted by Tobias Carroll In a reasonably genius move, the Village Voice‘s Sound of the City music blog is reprinting some of the record reviews that Colson Whitehead wrote for said newspaper in the early 90s. First up: Basehead’s Not in Kansas Anymore. On Not in Kansas Anymore (Imago), Basehead drops most of those hip hop gestures—a little half-hearted scratching is all that’s to be had—leaving only the band’s mellow, minimalist arrangements. A college boy to the core, Ivey’s lyrics are pure […]
Today is Wrestlemania, tomorrow is the beginning of the Electric Literature/Colson Whitehead #Stuffmymusesays Twitter Contest. Which is more badass? or winning this…
Tobias Carroll’s picks Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem Midnight Picnic by Nick Antosca Scorch Atlas by Blake Butler AM/PM by Amelia Gray Lowboy by John Wray The Other City by Michal Ajvaz Asta in the Wings by Jan Elizabeth Watson Between Jan Elizabeth Watson’s novel of a brother and sister raised in isolation and Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor, this was a good year for novels evoking childhood. Both Watson and Whitehead deftly suggest their narrators’ adult destinies with a few […]
“Put your left hand on the table. Put your right hand in the air. If you stay that way long enough, you’ll get a plot,” Margaret Atwood says when asked where her ideas come from. When questioned about whether she’s ever used that approach, she adds, “No, I don’t have to.” Enough said, Margaret Atwood. I go through phases where I don’t care at all about the practices of other writers, as I’m fairly certain nearly all of us are […]
Hemingway’s short story “The Snows of Kilimanjara” may make a resurgence in the coming years, as the African snows, once “as wide as all the world…and unbelievably white,” of the sky-high peak could be completely obsolete within as little as 12 years. Lit. Is the Internet making you illiterate? Colson Whitehead on choosing What to Write Next: play darts! The Millions has compiled a descriptive list of Difficult Books. I like this. Let’s read them. Somerset Maugham broke all the […]