Sparksheet interviews Blake Eskin, the New Yorker’s first and only web editor, who shares the venerable magazine’s unique approach to having an online presence. (via)
Digital Eustace
Uprooted
What is deracination, and why is it key to understanding American fiction? In her novel Housekeeping, Pulitzer laureate Marilynne Robinson defines it as “the free appreciation of whatever comes under one’s eye,” inspired by the Western sentiment of “feeling no tie of particularity to any single past or history.” In the Boston Review, Jess Row states that deracination is “a long-lived and nearly universal trope in white American literature,” claiming it represents “an American ideal: not to strip from the roots, but to de-race oneself.”
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He’s on the Fence
On Wednesday, the BBC Radio 4 program Four Thought broadcasted an essay by our own Mark O’Connell that lays out a novel argument: we should embrace the value of ambivalence. (We’re not sure how to feel about that.)
40 Years of Terry Gross
“Over the years, Gross has done some 13,000 interviews, and the sheer range of people she has spoken to, coupled with her intelligence and empathy, has given her the status of national interviewer. Think of it as a symbolic role, like the poet laureate — someone whose job it is to ask the questions, with a degree of art and honor.” Terry Gross sits down with The New York Times Magazine in honor of her 40th anniversary hosting Fresh Air.
New Hughes
A previously unpublished short story by Langston Hughes is now available online at The New Yorker. Pair with our own Emily Colette Wilkinson’s staff pick, Tambourines to Glory.
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We Have So Little Time Anyway
Recommended Reading: The Rumpus interviews John Grisham.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Agee; Mann; Cowley; Virgil; Szybist
Out this week: The Complete Journalism of James Agee; Straight Razor by Randall Mann; The Long Voyage: Selected Letters of Malcolm Cowley; The Virgil Encyclopedia; and a new e-book edition of Incarnadine, the poetry collection by Mary Szybist that won this year’s National Book Award.
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