Wallace Shawn, one of The Millions’ favorite humans, interviewed at Splice Today.
Wallace Shawn Interviewed
A Unified Theory of Doughnuts
For LitHub, Elizabeth McCracken proposes, at last, a unified theory of doughnuts: “Perhaps I cling to doughnuts because doughnuts still exist in the world, though Woolworth’s and Howard Johnson’ses don’t.”
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The Best of Young British Rankings
Hurricane Reads
East Coasters can prepare for Hurricane Irene by reading Hart Crane‘s “O Carib Isle” (via W.W. Norton & Co.) or William Carlos Williams‘ “The Hurricane” (via Proustitute). The Book Bench has also compiled a list of “Six Shorts to Read During a Hurricane.”
Beginner’s Luck
“Our great poet forever has one foot on Mount Parnassus and the other in the rue Quincampoix,” the Wall Street of eighteenth-century Paris. On how Voltaire outsmarted one of the earliest lotteries and made a fortune. Also check out how Goethe became an amateur auction theorist.
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The anticipations of a Most Anticipated book
Not every worthy book finds the audience it deserves as quickly as Edan Lepucki’s California. John Warner writes about the long aftermath of finding his debut, The Funny Man, featured in our 2011 Most Anticipated Book Preview: “I wondered, what if? Maybe this was going to be the next phase of my life, and when people asked me what I did, I’d say that I wrote novels.” His new collection of short stories is Tough Day for the Army.
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“Both a gem and a bomb”
Recommended Reading: this excerpt of Tim Parrish’s new book (with accompanying self-interview).
Epic
“Idea #2: Book opens to reveal it is hollow, contains one medium-sized onion. Review: ‘Multilayered… had me in tears.'” How to write a first novel that gets praised in the New York Times.
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