Fans intrigued/disturbed by the real-life look at polygamy from the perspective of women in the HBO series “Big Love” might be interested in this bit of news from Siberia.
Polygamy the New Feminism?
Slow Down, September!
There was a lot going on this September. Luckily, the good folks over at The Literary Hub have provided us with this helpful list of five of the best new books September had to offer. A personal favorite includes Emily Donoghue’s The Wonder, in which the protagonist appears to be subsisting on nothing but water.
Lady Boxers at the LRB
If you didn’t like Elif Batuman‘s gut-punch to MFA writing (“Get A Real Degree”) in this issue of the London Review of Books, might I suggest Jenny Diski’s cudgeling of self-help lit in the LRB’s Diary essay?
●
●
American Book Awards
The 2014 National Book Awards were just announced earlier this week. In celebration, The Paris Review took a look back at the American Book Awards, which “serve as a reminder that ostensibly prestigious institutions—institutions whose authority and taste depend on their perceived stability—are just as susceptible to whims and trends as the rest of us, which is to say very.”
●
●
A Way Out of No Way
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor reviews Saidiya Hartman's Wayward Crossings, Beautiful Experiments, "a radical, genre-defying examination of the lives of 'ordinary' young Black women."
●
●
●
Choose Life
“The purpose of being a serious writer is not to express oneself, and it is not to make something beautiful, though one might do those things anyway. Those things are beside the point. The purpose of being a serious writer is to keep people from despair. If you keep that in mind always, the wish to make something beautiful or smart looks slight and vain in comparison. If people read your work and, as a result, choose life, then you are doing your job.” Year in Reading alumna Sarah Manguso on envy and the purpose of writing. Pair with Jaime Green’s Millions review of Manguso’s Ongoingness.
●
●