Just wanted to start your day off with this photo titled “Journalists at a Microsoft press conference”. (Via Clusterflock) Lit. Cristina Nehring wasn’t too happy with Emily Gould’s review of her book, A Vindication of Love. (thanks HTMLGiant) The ongoing series exploring what the late Roberto Bolaño read over at MobyLives has made for good reading. Discussed today is Bolaño’s love of French lit. Newsrooms as training grounds for fiction writers? Mashable gives us their thoughts on Barnes and Nobles […]
Bites: Henry Miller in LA, Bolaño was a Reader, Frost Sent Christmas Cards, Art Basel is on, Idiots, and More
When I think of Henry Miller, Paris, Brooklyn, and Big Sur come to mind, not Los Angeles. The Rumpus changes that. You are probably going to like this Justin Taylor guy. Roberto Bolaño read an awful lot. Serbian experimental writer Milorad Pavić has passed away. Jonathan Lethem calls Padgett Powell’s The Interrogative Mood “a supreme literary stunt” at The Millions. At HTML Giant, Jimmy Chen says of Nabokov’s The Original of Laura, “doesn’t do much except make a publishing event […]
Bites: Juliet Linderman Interviews Paul Auster, LOOK on Display, Wes Anderson’s Music Choices, and more
Juliet Linderman, managing editor of The Greenpoint Gazette and featured reader at last month’s Vol. 1 Storytelling anniversary party, has lovingly and skillfully interviewed Paul Auster for The Rumpus. It is “lovingly” done in the sense that she clearly holds the novelist to eminent, celebratory respect, and “skillful” in that she just did it really fucking well. And Auster upholds it with his writerly charm, eclipsing the recent unpleasing flavor left atop my literary taste buds by Cormac McCarthy.
Cormac McCarthy Doesn’t Give Many Interviews
Cormac McCarthy, in an interview by the Wall Street Journal, denounces short fiction as too easy for writers and modern readers as too fickle for epics.
Bites: Winston Churchill’s Valuable Complaints, Searls Edits Walden, Brownstein Questions Thurston Moore, and more
Sometimes halting eloquence doesn’t fare well when you’re trying to make a complaint. Winston Churchill faced such a problem at this Scottish hotel, where his letter of misgivings is proudly mounted for guests to see. I’m hoping that, in addition to showcasing Churchill’s disappointments, they not only addressed their bug problem but started serving lunch food as well. After all, what distinguished person eats pancakes at mid-day? For crying out loud, Scotland. Lit. & The Internet Bolaño explains life, naturally […]
Weekend Bites: Dyson on Illmatic, National Bookstore Day, Bolaño “myth building”, Sesame Street, Dirty Projectors, and More.
Michael Eric Dyson wrote a book on Nas and his landmark album, Illmatic that is due out in January. Born to Use Mics is discussed in a few places: Nah Right Pitchfork Daily Swarm Lit. Philip Gourevitch is leaving the Paris Review. The Rumpus discusses Sigrid Nunez’s memoir relationship with Susan Sontag in the new issue of Tin House. Happy National Bookstore Day! Is the “myth building” around Bolaño getting to be too much? The Guardian reviews James Ellroy’s Blood’s […]
Bites: Turdsworth, the man who makes Pekar tweet, The Twilight Sad, and more
Romantics get saucy! Lord Byron referred to William Wordsworth as “Turdsworth” in a letter. Now somebody can own that letter, and many others by the poet. Are we excited seeing trailers for the new Wes Anderson film, Fantastic Mr. Fox? Yes we are. Lit. Jeff Newelt: The man, the myth, the dude who tweets for Harvey Pekar. Nick Cave: “An aspirant solipsist” Starbucks saved a life, but how was the book? After all this zombie talk, it was finally time […]
Bites: Bolaño syllabus, Jewish Wild Things, David Byrne, Hot Topic tour, and more.
Lit. The Millions have an essay, “A Bolaño Syllabus.” That’s all, nothing witty. Just read it. Tablet Magazine, happy to point out that Where the Wild Things Are has “profoundly Jewish roots,” calls Paste Magazine’s essay which informs this theory “overwrought.” The Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Once a dream, now a reality. L Magazine interviews Stephen Elliott, author of The Adderall Diaries. Google may modify its online book deal (Thanks, Boston Globe) Dear Conversational Reading, Mainstream publishing mystifies […]