That tweet by Marc Maron to Bret Easton Ellis is a perfect example of why it is perfectly alright to stay on Twitter past midnight. We are also hopeful that this is Maron’s invite to Ellis to appear on his WTF podcast. Meredith Blake at The Paris Review meets Lady Fiona Herbert, the eighth Countess of Carnarvon, and talks about her book Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey. Rob Horning at The New Inquiry on Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. A Wisława Szymborska […]
The Greatest Books I’ve Never Read #2: “Pride And Prejudice”
In each volume of his bound-to-be-award-winning series “The Greatest Books I’ve Never Read”, avid procrastinator and V1’s Nick Curley profiles a renowned tome of fiction that, for a variety of reasons, he has not gotten around to completing during his tenure on this earth. In other words: an almost entirely uninformed book review. This series aims to be confessional, cathartic, and as embarrassing as possible. It is an inquiry into non-reading where reading should have been: a descent into the illiterate […]
Morning Bites: Jackson Pollock death day, Dana Spiotta on Bookworm, Jennifer Gilmore’s desk, Tom Waits fishing, and more
Today we learn what Jennifer Gilmore’s desk looks like, Tom Waits on a boat, No Child Left Behind is being left behind, Jackson Pollock is still dead, and more.
Morning Bites: Happy Charlotte Brontë, Iggy Pop, and Robert Smith Day, Jane Austen Musical, Wavves, and More
Today is the shared birthday of Charlotte Brontë, Iggy Pop, and Robert Smith. We think that should make this day a national holiday of some sort. “Sense and Sensibility: The Musical.” No, this isn’t a Mel Brooks gag. We are still not sick of Elif Batuman. She writes about life after the success of The Possessed, and the time she asked Jonathan Franzen for pot. Top 5 conversations I’d like to sit in on: Tina Fey hanging out with Steve […]
Bites: The Life and Times of Rick Moody, Bad Hanukkah Choices, 21st Century Jane Austen, Fugazi Moments, and More.
The life and times of Rick Moody. Indichik talks about Moody and his band, The Wingdale Community Singers. Moby Lives gives us a roundup of Moody and his Twitter experiment. “This is why I love the internet.” Moody and Electric Literature aren’t the only people to use Twitter as an avenue for fiction writing. Lit. “Of the six million victims of the Holocaust, the only face we know intimately belongs to Anne Frank.” This is how you get me to […]
Bites: A Woman’s Wit, James Franco is on Daytime TV, So What?, Aerosmith Understands the Internet, and more
The New York Times reviews “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen in Life and Legacy” on exhibit at The Morgan Library & Museum. Lit. Even though there are approximately one billion newly published food memoirs per American second, everyone’s still obsessing over Jonathan Safran Foer and his book about that ultra-modern idea of vegetarianism. Wells Tower is also still writing for Outside Mag. According to the Rumpus, this is one example of why fiction writers make good journalists. The Guardian reviews […]
Bites: Gladwell is Analyzed, Zizek on Post-Communism, the “Weirdness” of Health Insurance, and more
Malcolm Gladwell The internet is a-twitter with three things this morning: the anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the health care bill, and Maureen Tkacik’s Nation piece, “Malcolm Gladwell for Dummies.” HTMLGIANT’s Justin Taylor sees the essay as more than just a piece on Gladwell, but also “worth looking at…in light of [the] ongoing discussion of what good criticism can or should look like.” The Millions wonders if this is “a tipping point for Gladwell haters.” Berlin Wall […]
A Brief History of the Modern Zombie, or Why I Hate Zombie Lit
by Willa A. Cmiel For as much as we like to talk about and link to zombies here at Vol. 1, I really think the trend is, to put it nicely, pretty silly. To be truly frank, I actually find it immensely, offensively, near-tragically awful. (It’s true that I’ve written about this before.) Historically, zombie mythology originated in West Indian Voodoo lore, and was taken and misinterpreted by Western society (Night of the Living Dead). And then we took it […]