“5 Under 35” honoree Lydia Peelle reads you some “fiction for driving across America” at BOMB.
Because Reading and Driving at the Same Time is Dangerous, People!
New Quarterly Conversation
A new issue of The Quarterly Conversation covers Gaddis, Müeller, and the Nordic masculinity of Per Petterson, among other topics.
A Reader’s Rebellion
“Trusting the literary press and the mechanisms of the market to curate the books we read and study is to hand over whole regions of literary curiosity and judgment before one even picks up a book.” On refusing to read. We’re not prepared to go quite that far, instead preferring our own Sonya Chung‘s practice of not finishing books.
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Tastemakers
Despite his popularity in Europe, the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig never hit it big in America. At Flavorwire, Jason Diamond argues that this may be about to change, thanks to an unlikely culprit: the latest Wes Anderson film.
For David Foster Wallace Completists
A new anthology out from Da Capo Press, Bound to Last: 30 Writers on Their Most Cherished Book, includes an essay by David Foster Wallace’s widow, Karen Green, on how books helped her cope with his death: “I’ll try not to use the word survive. I think I’ve determined, by trial and error, that certain underlined, highlighted, and dog-eared books, in conjunction with pharmaceuticals, are beneficial after a trauma. What was it the realtor called it? ‘The Incident.’ Books can be helpful after an Incident.” (Thanks, Diavanna)
You Already Know This Because You Read
“[L]overs of more experimental books showed the ability to see things from different perspectives but it was comedy fans who scored the highest for relating to others.” A new study suggests that people who read books are nicer, reports The Independent. In our recent interview with author John Vaillant he wholly agreed. “Empathy is what gives you the access,” he told us. “I see the writer (fiction or nonfiction) as a kind of permeable membrane through which the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of others can pass and manifest.”
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A Book, Not a Blog. About (but not) Adoption.
Matthew Salesses, whose forthcoming novel-in-stories I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying (excerpt here) will publish in February, has started writing a book (on Tumblr) “(not) about adoption.” As Salesses notes in the blog’s first post, his new project “is not to be a memoir, or an op-ed, or a travel narrative, or an answer to anyone …This is to be the story of finding out.”
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Lauren Oyler on America’s Alienating Literary Culture
The book critic and Fake Accounts author says that smart readers are not being served by the publishing industry.
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