In this week’s New Yorker, James Wood critiques Paul Auster, while his sometime-subject Don DeLillo offers refreshingly offbeat short fiction.
Goodies from The New Yorker
The Eye of God
We’re guessing this is the first short story in the history of modern fiction to mention both The Legend of Zelda and a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread.
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The Sot-Weed Movie
Steven Soderbergh is interested in bringing The Sot-Weed Factor – John Barth’s “750-plus-page satire of picaresque novels” – to the big, silver or computer screen. You should start getting excited about this if you’re from Maryland, interested in literature, or tickled by the word “beshit.”
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My Way of Proceeding
New poems from Rae Armantrout are always a cause for celebration. Here are two of them from the Possession issue of Granta Magazine, along with a couple of bonus poems by Caitlin Scarano. Don’t worry, you can thank me later.
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Martin Amis on Philip Larkin’s Love Letters
“Much of the time, though, readers will be thinking that the ‘literary correspondence’ is something we’re well shot of – a postwar embarrassment, like child labour, meat rationing and outdoor toilets.” Martin Amis reviews the recent collection of Philip Larkin’s love letters, Letters to Monica, at Guardian.
Where She Was From
For only $1.65 million, you can have a piece of Joan Didion’s childhood. Her high school home, The Didion House, is on the market in Sacramento. Before you make a bid, it might be good to brush up on California with Didion’s 2003 memoir, Where I Was From.
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Feeling Lonely Tonight?
Jeff Ragsdale (Jeff, One Lonely Guy) produced, shot and edited an “immersion documentary” in which he accompanied Canadian escorts on hundreds of calls over a span of several months. The half-hour film is entitled “30 Nights with a Call Girl.” Millions readers may recall Ragsdale’s work from its mention in our own Sonya Chung’s essay “On Loneliness.”