Food writing fans: In the Chicago Tribune, several top chefs name their favorite books about food. (Thanks Laurie)
Best Food Books
Lahiri on Salter
As part of a Paris Review series of essays celebrating James Salter, Jhumpa Lahiri writes “For over half my life, I have returned repeatedly to Light Years.”
Drunk Texts From Famous Authors (Part II)
A year and a half later, Jessie Gaynor returns to The Paris Review to follow up her much-appreciated “Drunk Texts From Famous Authors” series. (Part one is here.) On tap this time: T.S. Eliot, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Samuel Beckett, Roald Dahl, Jorge Luis Borges, Guillaume Apollinaire, William Blake, and a Flarf poet.
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Reading Lolita on Tumblr
“[I]t becomes an act of subversion, an act of catharsis.” Plougshares has a piece about the Lolita aesthetic on Tumblr. See also: our conversation with John Gall who, as art director for Vintage and Anchor books, was responsible for at least two Lolita covers, not to mention the redesign of the entire Nabokov catalog.
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Just Another Award
“Four years after first announcing the decision to open the prize to Americans, the Booker is virtually indistinguishable from its competitors. It is exactly what many feared it would become: corporate and daft.” Alex Shephard writing for The New Republic about why the Man Booker Prize isn’t interesting anymore. Still, should you want to know who’s shortlisted this year, here’s our roundup.
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Listening in on The Missouri Review
Recommended Listening: The Missouri Review’s new weekly podcast, Soundbooth, which will feature interviews and readings with authors, editors, agents, and more. The first episode is a conversation between editor in chief Speer Morgan and marketing director Kris Somerville on the research they do for the journal’s feature section. You can subscribe here.
Fifty Years of Naked Lunch
A Friday afternoon pharmacy lesson at Stop Smiling: an interview with William Boroughs, celebrating 50 years of Naked Lunch.
Brit Bennett on the Opposite Sides of the Color Line
Brit Bennett discusses her latest book, The Vanishing Half, which follows twin sisters as one lives life as a white woman and one as a Black woman.
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