At Salonica, Monica Carter interviews Muriel Barbery, author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, about her new novel, Gourmet Rhapsody.
“…invisible worlds, unspeakable intuitions…”
Holiday OuLiPo
This holiday season, show a little restraint. Write a short short that uses each word only once, and email it to [email protected] by December 31 at midnight for your chance to win Electric Literature vol. 1 and be published on their blog, The Outlet. Further details available here.
A Quintet of Interviews for Your Delectation
Anya Ulinich, author of Petropolis, talks to World Literature Today: "What else can a person do when she gets home after a ten-hour work day - with a toothache that she can't afford to fix . . . - but fall on the couch and watch whatever is in front of her face?" . . . Lydia Davis, whose Collected Stories is just out, talks to Sarah Manguso for The Believer: "At the origin of the work there has to be strong feeling, if it’s going to be any good. Of course, that strong feeling can be a delight in language." . . . The Book Bench unearths a 1978 John Updike interview with a Croation periodical, which finds the Rabbit Angstrom author halfway through his tetralogy. . . . Edwin Frank of NYRB Classics talks to Omnivoracious, and selects his favorite books in the series (via). . . . And James Ellroy submits to interrogation at The Paris Review: "I was always thinking about how I would become a great novelist."
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Moneyball Movie Back on Track
The embattled film version of Michael Lewis' baseball bestseller Moneyball, once set to be directed by Steven Soderbergh, is now back on track with Bennett Miller, director of Capote, set to helm. Brad Pitt is still lined up to play Oakland A's G.M. Billy Beane.
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The FBI Analyzes Gone Girl
Recommended viewing: an FBI agent takes a look at Amy Dunne's story from Gone Girl and, surprise!, finds it a little lacking.
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Which Book Can Save Your Life?
Freedom, The Imperfectionists, and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet were some of the biggest books of the year, both literally and among our readers. But which one of them could stop a bullet for you? Electric Lit posts a video of the necessary research.
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Whither the Bookshops?
The 1.5 million people who live in the Bronx lack a general interest bookstore, classifying their borough as one of a growing number of "book deserts" across the country. To combat this trend, the National Book Foundation just launched "The Book Rich Environment Initiative." Meanwhile, Juma'a Ali runs a popular bookshop in a UN-administered refugee camp near the South Sudanese city of Malakal.