For a chat between authors Joshua Cohen and Ben Marcus on the subject of dystopian fiction, we could ask for no more apt backdrop than yesterday’s overcast afternoon, cast against the astral Museum of Jewish Heritage’s panoramic window overlooking New York Harbor. Behind Marcus and Cohen, black helicopters raced laps around floppy hunchbacked seagulls. From this vantage point Ellis Island looked like what Cohen portrays it as in his eight hundred plus page colossus Witz: a dank and dim Guantanamo […]
Morning Bites: Poe’s birthday, The male novelist, Ben Marcus on NPR, post-Wikipedia blackout, and more
Edgar Allan Poe was born on this day in 1809. What did the Wikipedia blackout accomplish? Teddy Wayne on “The agony of the male novelist” at Salon. Elizabeth Bishop’s paintings. Rich Cohen, Joshua Cohen, and (as far as we can tell) no other people named Cohen are involved in a book called Jewish Jocks. Ben Marcus talks about The Flame Alphabet on All Things Considered. Follow Vol. 1 Brooklyn on Twitter, Facebook, Google + and our Tumblr. Got tips for Bites? Info@Vol1brooklyn.com
Afternoon Bites: Ryan Boudinot, Lookout! Records, Joshua Cohen, and more
“If books become mere art objects, do e-books become conceptual art? ” Joshua Cohen writes about taking copies of Triple Canopy to Germany. Warren Ellis shares his thoughts on Christopher Hitchens’s Arguably. Paul Di Fillippo reviews Ryan Boudinot’s Blueprints of the Afterlife. Spencer Ackerman pays tribute to the late Lookout! Records. New Yorkers: Nerd Jeopardy’s happening on Wednesday. Follow Vol. 1 Brooklyn on Twitter, Facebook, and our Tumblr. Got tips for Bites? Info@Vol1brooklyn.com
A year of favorites: Jason’s 2011 Best Of list
Posted by Jason Diamond I’ve written and read my share of year-end lists, and I’m at the point now where I’m not totally sure what sort of purpose they serve, but I continue to read and write them anyway. I’m not trying to sound jaded about peoples roundups of the year that was, in fact I rather like them and really enjoy doing my own. I guess my issue tends to be more of the way you’ve got to dig […]
Morning Bites: Joshua Cohen, The Corrections on HBO, new Atlas Sound, comedy albums, and more
“Describing Joshua Cohen’s wonderful and elliptical novel A Heaven of Others is a bit like attempting to rehash an acid trip—no analysis can quite do justice to the feel of the experience.” – Adam Wilson reviews Joshua Cohen’s A Heaven of Others at Bookforum. Somewhere in the world there is a collaboration between Blur and poet Michael Horovitz. Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections is officially a thing on HBO. The new Atlas Sound album Parallax is streaming at the New York Times. It is very much […]
Morning Bites: Lovecraft turns 120, Grossman and the Woolfs, Finnish Bellow, and more
Tomorrow, August 20th, is the 120th birthday of H.P. Lovecraft. Lev Grossman talks some Virginia Woolf. Remember last year when he wrote about Virginia’s husband in The Believer? (We’re just trying to give you things to read this weekend.) The short list is announced for the St. Francis literary prize. The writers and their nominated books are: Kevin Brockmeier, The Illumination; Joshua Cohen, Witz; Jonathan Dee, The Privileges; Yiyun Li, Gold Boy Emerald Girl; Marlene van Niekerk, Agaat; and Brad […]
Indexing: Adam Ross, Emily St. John Mandel, the Ace Hotel, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, and so much more!
Our weekly series where Vol. 1 editors talk about what they’re reading, listening to and watching. Juliet Linderman I was lucky enough to scam a galley of Justin Taylor’s forthcoming book and first novel The Gospel of Anarchy a few weeks ago after our Vol. 1 November reading, and I read it in a flash. Yeah yeah yeah, Justin Taylor is a good friend of Vol. 1, but even if he wasn’t I’d still have to say: Damn. Dude can […]
Weekend Bites: Joshua Cohen On Adam Levin, NY Art Book Fest, Greenman & Strauss, Maddow On Olbermann And More
“Who better to review a 1,000-page Jewish book that comes out in the fall than the author of an 800-page Jewish book that came out in the spring?” – Joshua Cohen reviews Adam Levin’s The Instructions. At Brooklyn Vegan: The NY Art Book Fair is this weekend. At The Atlantic: Classical music is still not dying. The Speakeasy: A night of fast memoirs with Ben Greenman and Neil Strauss. Edward Champion reviews 127 Hours. At Jewcy: A rambling review of […]