New from Stephen Fry: Stephen Fry in America: Fifty States and the Man Who Set Out to See Them All, a book recounting his travels in America while filming the BBC series of the same name–enlighteningly and entertainingly reviewed at The Washington Times. Includes the shocking revelation that Fry very nearly became an American!
I’m an Alien
A Literary Showman
Our own Nick Ripatrazone writes for The Literary Hub about Don DeLillo’s deep Italian-American roots. Pair with Ripatrazone’s Millions review of DeLillo’s new novel, Zero K.
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Some (Possibly Stale) Links
William T. Vollmann has a new book out, Riding Toward Everywhere about riding freight trains. In what must be a first for Vollmann, the Washington Post describes the book as a "modest little volume."The New Yorker held a contest to reinterpret Eustace Tilley, its "iconic dandy." The entries are posted on Flickr.The anxiety brought on by selling books to the used bookstore.The Atlantic website goes free. Everything back to 1995 is available.n+1 interviews a hedge fund manager. It's surprisingly fascinating (if you skim the technical stuff).Also in the world of big money, a record was broken on Monday. As global markets plummeted, French bank Societe Generale was selling frantically. The bank had just discovered that an employee had fraudulently lost $7.2 billion, believed to be the most ever by a "rogue trader."
The Left Coast On Lefties
Southpaws unite! The LA Review of Books takes on left-handedness. Now, someone use this can opener for me.
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Another Veselka Novel on the Way
Zazen author Vanessa Veselka announced on Tuesday that she has sold her second novel. Unfortunately, she doesn’t reveal many more details than that, so we’re all going to have to bide our time until then.
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Should’ve Known Better
“Grief doesn’t only disturb life; it disturbs the way we talk about life. As myriad aspects of our existence are questioned and reexamined in the wake of a death, so too is our relationship with the language we rely on for our grief’s expression.” This track-by-track take on Sufjan Stevens’s Carrie & Lowell from The Rumpus is really just a magnificent, emotive piece on elegy.
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