In one corner, Sarah Palin, the “bone-licker, shit-kicker, caribou-killer.” In the other, the gentle friend of animals, Jonathan Safran Foer. According to Macy Halford at the NYer blog, this fight’d be no contest.
Smackdown: Palin V. Foer
Garrets Etc.
Most writers, unless they’re lucky enough to have an ideal place in which to work, make do with the best space available. For Colum McCann’s father, the shed in his backyard, which “always smelled damp inside, as if the rain rose up out of the carpet,” sufficed for the fiction he wrote after coming home from work. At Page-Turner, the National Book Award winner and Year in Reading alum remembers his father’s retreat.
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The Truth Is Here
Here's a piece of news you likely didn't see coming: David Duchovny has published a novel. Titled Holy Cow, it deals, in the words of interviewer Taffy Brodesser-Akner, with "a traumatized cow, a sassy turkey and a pig converting to Judaism." She talks with the X-Files star in this week's Times Magazine.
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Crippling Anxiety
Accustomed to your Crippling Anxiety in New York? Crippling Anxiety on the West Coast is just as good. Pair with Sarah Labrie’s reflections on social media anxiety.
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The House of Black Is For Sale
Joining the Order of the Phoenix might cost you. The Movoto Real Estate blog priced 12 Grimmauld Place at $3,685,500 (we're unsure of the price in galleons, gnuts, and sickles.) In the past, the company has estimated prices for Hogwarts and The Burrow. Evidently, you need as much money as J.K. Rowling to live in the wizarding world.
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5 Under 35
The National Book Foundation announces its annual list of 5 under 35 writers.
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The Reason I Jump
Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell and his wife KA Yoshida (who have an autistic son of their own) translated the latest work from Naoki Higashida, who uses an alphabet grid to communicate. The resulting memoir from the thirteen year old boy, The Reason I Jump, is scheduled for an August release. Hari Kunzru has a sneak preview of the book’s cover.
Remembering Ronan
Last Friday, the writer Emily Rapp’s three-year-old son Ronan passed away from Tay-Sachs disease. Because Emily is part of the greater Rumpus family, the site is honoring Ronan’s memory by publishing a tribute by her friend Jennifer Pastiloff. They’re also encouraging people to help fight Tay-Sachs disease here.