What went through Jonathan Meiburg’s head when, in 2008, he formally left critical darlings Okkervil River? I’d be willing to wager either a sense of duty or a feeling of dread; a now or never sort of thing that only he could truly understand. Sure, his band Shearwater was gaining fans every day. Signing a contract with indie giants Matador couldn’t hurt either, but it couldn’t have been easy.
Morning Bites: John Jeremiah Sullivan fever, Ben Marcus on Other People, Tinseltown rare book nerds, and more
The Los Angeles Review of Books talks about John Jeremiah Sullivan’s Pulphead, and then has a conversation with the author. If you can’t get enough of Mr. Sullivan (like we can’t), he wrote about Ireland for the New York Times Magazine. Rare book collectors of the Hollywood elite. The Other People podcast talks to Ben Marcus. If you like Portlandia, you’ll just love Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine. On Henry Rollins. Stories about beer and the environment are always important. Follow […]
A year of favorites: Tobias’s Best Of 2011
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 […]