Interviews with Rebecca Solnit and Teju Cole, a French bookstore opens in the city, thoughts on Luke B. Goebel’s new book, restaurants staffed by robots, and more.
Today: Darin Strauss on Stuart Dybek, Ian Svenonius on hoarders, The Battered Bastards of Baseball, and more.
John Wray on pen names, the best film adaptations of Dostoevsky’s work, thoughts on the new Ellen Willis collection, talking with Rebecca Solnit, and more.
Reading the first few pages of Roxane Gay’s An Untamed State, the reader might get a certain set of expectations; its narrator, Mireille, begins to recount the moment in which she was kidnapped from outside of her family’s home in Haiti. Her voice in these passages is lucid, controlled; that it’s at a remove, that it’s being told from an unspecified moment in the future, offers the prospect of rescue, the idea that her abduction will be a temporary condition.
This afternoon: Finnegan’s Wake gets a fancy new edition, new writing from Rebecca Solnit, a look at why politicians want to be painters, unlikely literary adaptations, and more.
Thoughts on Rebecca Solnit’s latest book, City Gardens gets its history written, a look at “Brooklynsploitation,” Miranda July’s new art project, and much more.
Essays are great. The talented Rebecca Solnit (above) discusses “elite panic,” among other things, in an an interview at BOMB Magazine. “Zadie Smith on the rise of the essay.“ The kind of wishy-washy title of Bob Thompson’s piece in The American Scholar, “Writing About Writers,” does not give it due justice. Please read. Lit. Thinking of gifting a newfangled, bougey little reading device called the Nook? Well, you’re outta luck. Yep, you may have to settle for the Kindle, which […]