- Did you read a short story today? He did.
- Samantha Hunt scribbles on bar napkins.
- Deborah Eisenberg not only writes great stories; she also gives a great interview.
- A Peter Markus story – free! – at failbetter.com.
- A Ben Fountain story – free! – at The Barcelona Review.
- Bookslut chats up Elizabeth Crane.
- Death is dead (via Conversational Reading).
Short Story Week Links
The Other Bill of Rights
“I can read whatever I want. No one can stop me. I can help other people read what they want. And no one can stop them.” Zoe Fisher for The Rumpus about being “a horny queer teenager” who found her home in libraries. Pair with a controversial piece from our own pages this week by Douglas Koziol, a bookseller exploring what to do with “a book that you not only find objectionable but also believe actually dangerous in the lessons it portends amidst such a politically precarious time?”
“The equal of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Turgenev”
Recommended Reading: Eileen Battersby on a new translation of the Russian writer Nikolai Leskov.
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Voracious Reading
Are you the type of reader who craves the food described in novels like our own Nick Moran? Then take The Guardian’s “Food in fiction” quiz. Sample question: “According to the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, what kind of food is eaten tomorrow, yesterday, but never today?”
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Sweet peas rejoice!
Dear Sugar is back in action after a few months break from her advice column. And thank heavens, because reading this #LitBeat about an event in her honor over and over just wasn’t cutting it anymore.
From the Frozen North
Recommended Reading: “Out in the Great Alone,” Brian Phillips’s epic report from the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
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The Vulgar and Beautiful
At Big Other, Greg Gerke reads William H. Gass’s The Tunnel and looks at language, the controversy over the book, and how the vulgar and the beautiful relate.
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nature has designed them to be irresistible
Great news for food lovers and over-thinkers everywhere: Gastronomica, the James Beard Award winning journal that takes a highminded approach to food and taste, recently began publishing writing online. Start with this lovely long article on the competition between Chinese and French black truffles. Or with a slightly cheeky revision of Pierre Bourdieu’s food space, if that’s more your, um, cup of tea.
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