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
Draining Writing
Recommended Listening: Hanya Yanagihara, author of A Little Life, on Otherppl with Brad Listi. “It was draining in ways that I didn’t really realize until the book was done.” Pair with our own Lydia Kiesling’s piece on life in the works of Yanagihara and Atticus Lish.
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The End of Wall Street
In New York, Gabriel Sherman checks in on Wall Street and finds that the big money culture may be gone for good. “There has been a growing recognition on Wall Street that the system that had provided those million-dollar bonuses was built on a highly unstable foundation.”
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Turkey Days
Happy almost-Thanksgiving to our American readers! To celebrate, why not whip up a nice bowl of Everyone Get the Hell Out of of the Kitchen Right Now Before I Kill All of You Cranberry-Orange Dressing and pray that none of your other recipes have mistakes in them.
Recession, Eh? Not Up Here
The oil boom occurring in North Dakota, Montana, and Canada’s Bakken Formation is so frantic right now that ND’s unemployment rate is only 3.4%, the lowest in the nation. “Hiring is so frantic,” writes Business Week‘s Bryan Gruley, “the McDonald’s in Dickinson [North Dakota] is offering $300 signing bonuses.”
Bathtub Books
“At home, I dedicate occasional whole days to reading as if I’m a convalescent. The ideal place for this is the bath, where the body floats free,” Rachel Kushner told The New York Times in a “By the Book” interview. Yet just because her reading style is leisurely doesn’t mean her reading is; she discusses her love of Proust and avoidance of books known for their plots. For more Kushner, read our own interview with her or her 2013 Year in Reading post.
Let’s Not Get Started on the Lightbulb
“Miguel is pulling an all-nighter at the library to finish a history paper. If Miguel’s computer is operating on Microsoft Word 2003, how many useful suggestions does Clippy have between the hours of 8 pm and 3 am?” Introducing Microsoft Word Problems.
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