A weekly appreciation for the art of the review.
Morning Bites: Lost Martin Amis Video Game Masterpiece, Literary Jeremy Lin, Anthony Shadid, And More
Why the heck would Martin Amis want to distance himself from his 1982 classic Invasion of the Space Invaders? Everybody weighs in on the death of journalist Anthony Shadid. Alexander Chee on “The Jeremy Lin Economy” at The Classical. We aren’t sure if the Lin Economy includes the book deal he’s going to land. The American boosterism of Junot Díaz and Garrison Keillor. Want to look like Juliet from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet? Rookie tells you how. Joe Fassler at The Atlantic […]
Morning Bites: Putin’s canon, women writers, Nathan Englander, new Bookrageous, the human cost of an iPad, and more
Things we are 110% behind: Great works of art turned into sandwiches. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wants to put out a newspaper to unify the disparate peoples of Russia through a common literary canon. Women writers get more money but less respect. Hey! There’s a new Bookrageous episode available for you. From the “Stuff Vol. 1 Editors Wrote” department: Tobias on six authors who have also dabbled in songwriting, and Jason profiles Nathan Englander for Capital New York. Exactly how […]
Indexing: Books with numbers, back to “Treasure Island!!!,” a Joy Williams quest, Nathan Englander, Norman Lock, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and much more
A roundup of things consumed by our contributors. Jen Vafdis I read Joy Williams’ Honored Guest for the first of probably a few times this week. Some stories I loved unconditionally, others might reveal themselves to me later. You know how it is when one character jumps out at you in a story, and you immediately cast the role of that character in your mind? Perhaps other Joy Williams fans will agree, maybe not, but I think James Urbaniak (of […]
When Ephron met Englander
Nathan Englander’s got a new collection coming out, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, as well as an upcoming play based off a story from his first collection of stories. What else has Mr. Englander got coming up? Well, he’s in conversation with Nora Ephron at Symphony Space on January 25th, and we’ve got a pair of tickets to give out. What do you have to do win them? Tweet the hashtag #NoraandNathan at @Vol1Brooklyn. Winners will be picked […]
Morning Bites: Hunter S. Thompson treasure trove, Naomi Wolf at OWS, Tim Kinsella, Julian Barnes, and more
How much Hunter S. Thompson can you take? If the answer is, “There is never enough of the insanity!” Playboy has all of the articles that he wrote for the magazine up in one place waiting just for you! Naomi Wolf arrested at Occupy Wall Street. Between beating the crap out of peaceful protestors, arresting Wolf and Cornel West getting cuffed over the weekend, the police seem to be hellbent on making sure that everybody hates them. At The Paris […]
Animating Nathan Englander
Nathan Englander’s “The Reader” gets the animation treatment via Electric Literature.
Bites: David Foster Wallace Living on, Zadie Smith & Nathan Englander, Chabon Essay and More
At The Chronicle: The afterlife of David Foster Walace. At Guernica Mag: A video of Nathan Englander and Zadie Smith in conversation. At 3:AM Magazine: A poetry generator which “defines a space of language populated by a number of stanzas comparable to the number of fish in the sea,” using stanzas from Emily Dickinson’s poems and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. At The Atlantic: Michael Chabon writes a new essay.