In our morning reading: wishing Joan Didion a happy birthday, an interview with Chris Rock, Jen Doll on astrology books, fiction from Jac Jemc, and more.
In our Monday morning reading: Helen DeWitt discusses her library, Play It As It Lays is revisited, Robert Wyatt is interviewed, and more.
In our morning reading: thoughts on books by Claudia Rankine and Atticus Lish, a Joan Didion documentary is on the way, indie publishing in Minneapolis, horror fiction with sinister children, and more.
Ten minutes before lying down on the concrete floor of the WORD basement, I have a conversation about how it seems like some reviewers can’t help but compare essayists to either Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, or both, and that’s it. I think about how that isn’t such a bad comparison, but I wish they used other points of reference. I take one sip of wine because I’m driving, I nibble on a donut, then another nibble, then I realize I’ve […]
Interviews with the excellent comics creators Paul Pope and Dylan Meconis; Jhumpa Lahiri discusses her latest novel; Georges Perec helps organize your bookshelves; and much more.
Jessica Hopper wrote a love letter to Joan Didion for Rookie. Armistead Maupin is leaving San Francisco for Santa Fe, but not before he and his husband go to Burning Man this summer. We learned more than expected from this announcement, needless to say. Amelia Gray has a new story up at Vice. Remember that guy who went hitchhiking for a memoir and then got shot by an anonymous driver? Yeah, he made that up. Two strippers with somewhat uninspired […]
Justin Vivian Bond is a transgender writer, singer, painter, and activist constantly adding projects to an already lengthy list of accomplishments. Having played Carnegie Hall and Broadway as Kiki DuRane, the more vocal half of beloved punk-lounge act Kiki and Herb, Mx. Bond made the transition to solo work under v’s own name with the 2011 album Dendrophile. V’s next album is called Silver Wells, after the fictional hometown of Joan Didion’s protagonist in Play It As It Lays, and […]
So many jokes about being quixotic: searching for the bones of Cervantes. What does Lord Grantham’s Downton Abbey family have in common with Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof? The collected blurbs of Gart Shteyngart. Sheila Heti talks to Joan Didion in the latest issue of The Believer. There’s an exclusive excerpt up now. Hannah Arendt: not the biggest fan of Israel. Lana Del Ray was better in Sixteen Candles than she was on this past weekend’s Saturday Night Live. Follow […]