This year we celebrate the centennial of Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way, the first volume in a set of books everyone you know has promised to read, and therefore the only volume everyone you know is sure to have read. To commemorate the event, the Morgan Library has assembled a room of Proustian memorabilia.
A roundup of things consumed by our contributors.
I didn’t think it was possible, but I think I may have found my favorite awful library book. Lit. The interactive Proust questionnaire over at Vanity Fair. NBA star Steve Nash and Cormac McCarthy discussed in this article. Appreciation for Alan Moore’s brilliant graphic novel, From Hell. Three Guys One Book show love for Emily St. John Mandel. Al Gore: Poet. The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn talks about writing the adaptation to Klosterman’s Fargo Rock City. Robert Birnbaum discusses Will […]
SF Chronicle and L.A. Times both review Zadie Smith’s Changing My Mind. The Millions comment on the reviews “non-committal, guarded praise” and go on to call it “wunderkind jealousy”. The Guardian says of Smith, “criticism is a bodily pleasure“. Time Out New York weighs in on Changing, name drops a bunch of other great writers while doing so. End up liking the book. Lit. The FBI kept an eye on Studs Terkel, considering him a “suspected communist”. Surprised? Saul Bellow […]
Jim Shepard for Electric Literature on the subject of fiction based on non-fiction: “We need to bear in mind, as we’ve been told many times, that we’re working from, but not necessarily about, our lives.” Lit. Edgar Allen Poe gets a real funeral. (Thanks, The Rumpus) On Vanity Fair’s website, take Proust’s Questionnaire and find out which celebrities you most resemble. Lev Grossman guest-posts for and on the National Book Critics Circle blog. Film, a Quick Weekend Roundup What will […]
Proust liked to knock a few cold ones back. So what? You think he subsisted on madeleines alone? Just look at that picture of him. He’s looking at you and saying “Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!” (via Maud Newton) Lit. You should probably go over to The Millions and see their list of “The Best Fiction of The Millennium (So Far)“ I feel like we should have a countdown to #1. Dan Brown taking on the Daughters of […]