To honor Herman Melville for making the great white whale a metaphor for the inscrutable and unknowable, a prehistoric leviathan now bears his name. (Thanks, Kevin)
Melville the Whale
One hundred tons of wisdom and learning
Ryeberg, an online magazine of writers curating YouTube videos, has a handy guide to creating an ebook in 8 easy steps. Step number 2: "Transform the information from the tape into static cosmic energy."
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Rithy Panh’s The Elimination
“Imagine a society in which money has been banished. A society in which you would be arrested if you wear eyeglasses, if you wear ties, or if you speak a foreign language.” The Coffin Factory's Randy Rosenthal takes a look at Rithy Panh’s The Elimination, an autobiography focused on his adolescence during the reign of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge.
Just Kids Playlist
As Rachel Syme points out, the person who made the Spotify playlist of every song mentioned in Patti Smith’s Just Kids deserves a free drink or two.
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November Is the Month for Madrileños
Late November brings work of another favorite Madrileño to the forefront. The final book of Javier Marías's Your Face Tomorrow trilogy, Poison, Shadow, and Farewell, will be published at the end of the month by New Directions. The incomparable Marias will make two New York appearances, a reading at the 92nd St Y (with Paul Auster) and a conversation with Paul Holdengräber at the New York Public Library.
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For the Cause
As the 20th century wore on, the Strugatsky brothers grew pessimistic about Soviet Communism, eventually turning their fictional worlds from socialist utopias to dystopias. Their most famous early novel, Noon: 22nd Century bears little resemblance to later works like Hard to Be a God, which implicitly criticizes the Soviet government. At The Paris Review Daily, Ezra Glinter charts their evolution.
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