At the Morgan Library in NYC: “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen‘s Life and Legacy.” Read the NY Times review of the show here. And, if your hankering for eighteenth and early nineteenth century English art isn’t sated by the Austen, the Morgan is also offering “William Blake‘s World: ‘A New Heaven Is Begun'”.
Jane Austen in New York
Bring your @ game.
Sarah Weinman has compiled a list of verified literary Twitter accounts on her blog.
Saunders Meets DFW
Sometime Millions writer Frank Kovarik plumbs the connections between George Saunders’ recent story in The New Yorker and David Foster Wallace’s suicide.
I Mean, Why Not?
Two minutes of gorgeous West Indian manatee footage, and you’d better believe I’m linking to it.
●
●
Getcha Popcorn Ready
Think of this as the film world’s equivalent of our Great Book Preview: Metacritic pores over the “50 Most-Anticipated Films” of the coming year.
●
●
My Body Shall Be All Yours
“I am nostalgic for letters. There’s a craft that’s been lost in expressing some kind of desire or passion or bodily experience for someone else.” From James Joyce to Frida Kahlo, The Guardian collects bits of great artists’ erotic missives to one another. And speaking of literary love letters, how about Nicholson Baker‘s Vox [ed. note: it makes a great Valentine’s Day gift]?
●
●
Careless Cervantes
Ilan Stavans’s introduction to the quadricentennial edition of Don Quixote is available on the Literary Hub website. As he explains it, the narrative is both baffling and perfect: “What I like most about Don Quixote is its imperfection. I wasn’t wrong in my teens about the sloppiness of the writing; it is just that my attitude was too pedantic. It is, unquestionably, a defective narrative. Cervantes is often criticized as a numb and careless stylist.”
●
●