In our morning reading: Ryan Chapman on Vladimir Nabokov, a playlist from Kathe Koja, and more.
Weekend Bites: Beth Gibbons, Chloe Aridjis Interviewed, Rachel Lyon, Lincoln Michel Fiction, and More
In our weekend reading: thoughts on new music from Beth Gibbons, new writing by Rachel Lyon and Lincoln Michel, and more.
Morning Bites: Adrienne Celt, Revisiting Yukio Mishima, Ahmed Saadawi, Mary Lattimore’s Latest, and More
In our morning reading: new writing by Adrienne Celt, thoughts on the music of Dead Can Dance, and much more.
Morning Bites: Laurie Anderson Interviewed, Vladimir Nabokov’s Dreams, A Frames, and More
In our morning reading: talking with Laurie Anderson, thoughts on works by Vladimir Nabokov and Superchunk, and more.
Morning Bites: Ionesco’s Birthday, Scott Cheshire Interviewed, “The Baltimore Atrocities,” Sarah Gerard, and More
In our Wednesday morning reading: tributes to the late founder of Coffee House Press, interviews with Scott Cheshire and Sarah Gerard, a history of the mod-punk band Chisel, the inspiration for Lolita, and more.
We’ll be off for the rest of the week, and will return on Sunday morning with new fiction. See you then.
Poetry in Motion: The Day Phil Parma Died
I sometimes picture the peak of Northeast winters, from the season’s first snowfall until about late February, as a hearth beside which friends and family inevitably nest. You’d think you’d see less of these people in cruel weather, but I find it to be the opposite: we come together to huddle for warmth and get a bit fatter in dark and stormy conditions. Unlike me, the season’s cold rain caused Flaubert’s heart to “crumble into ruins”. But Flaubert seems to […]
Indexing: Jet-lag literature, Nabokov, The Believer, Edith Wharton, and more
Tobias Carroll And lo: there was the literature of jet-lag. The second time around, the strengths of William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition remained intact: haunted characters and a pinpoint command of culture. Its flaws — notably, a conclusion that effectively sidelines the novel’s protagonist — remained present. And still, Pattern Recognition may well be my favorite of Gibson’s books: a morally resonant, deeply contemporary thriller that hits nearly all of my sweet spots. (Mysterious films, subcultural intrigue, globetrotting.) Were I fond of […]
Bites: New American Stories, New Nabokov is “Not a Novel”, Literary Journals as News Sources, Air Waves at Daytrotter, and More
Maud Newton talked about it in early November, but this recently posted review on Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigration (Library of America), had a quote I liked. Gary Shteyngart falls in love with cereal for the “unprecedented miracle” of toy prizes: “It tastes the way America feels. . . . . Something for nothing.” Lit. “The first thing you need to know about this new Nabokov thing is that it is not a novel.” — Ward Six. “In an ongoing effort to […]