This weekend: interviews with Alejandro Jodorowsky, Helen Oyeyemi, and Gary Lutz; Alexander Chee on Clifford Chase’s memoir; ghost hunters; and more.
Cross-country flights often give me a chance to work through the larger side of my to-read pile. That’s how I came to read John Berger’s Selected Essays and T.J. Binyon’s Pushkin in the last week and change. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Confessions ended up on my radar through WORD’s Classics book group. Initially, this was going to be what this week’s column would be about: Weighty Tomes, door-stoppers; books with a size suitable for comment. Instead, I’m going with novels. Weird, idiosyncratic […]
Revisiting Stefan Zweig, Helen Oyeyemi’s fantastic new novel, a new short story from Cameron Pierce, Frankie Cosmos talks Frank O’Hara, and more.
This morning: praise for Helen Oyeyemi’s new novel, David Edelstein on The Grand Budapest Hotel, things you should not say to a barista, and more.
Last year, for the music writing book group I run at WORD, we read The Feminist Press’s anthology of writings related to Pussy Riot. It was an interesting glimpse at the group, their origins, and the horrific show trial to which three of its members were subjected. Reading it, I felt as though I’d been given more knowledge, but was also hoping to be taken through the group’s art and criticism in the greater context of Russian society. Enter Masha […]
Mortifyingly, I haven’t actually read the current edition of Granta. I have a copy of it in my living room; I’ve thumbed through it a little bit: checked out some of the portraits; noted that Stephen Hall’s contribution seems to involve an interesting layout. But still: haven’t gotten to it yet. But that didn’t stop me from reading novels by three of the writers featured in said issue.