Janet Maslin at the New York Times reviews the collection Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters: “‘Hasn’t it been awful?’ Kerouac would write to Ginsberg in 1959. ‘We were so swingy? And now young poets are sneering at us?’”
Pen Pals Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg
Fuck Yeah, NYRB
Who says publishers have weak brands? Someone loves the NYRB Classics so much they started a Tumblr blog about them. It is called, appropriately, Fuck Yeah NYRB Classics!
JFK on the Decline of Physical Fitness
Recommended Reading: John F. Kennedy’s 1960 essay, “The Soft American,” in which the president warns us about “an increasingly large number of young Americans who are neglecting their bodies.”
●
●
Tuesday New Release Day: Prose; McCracken; Binchy; Rahman; Glancy; Bender; Marias
Francine Prose has a new novel out this week, while Elizabeth McCracken has a new story collection on shelves. Also out: Chestnut Street by the late Maeve Binchy; In the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman; Terms and Conditions by Robert Glancy; The Selected Letters of Elia Kazan; and new paperback editions of The Color Master by Aimee Bender and The Infatuations by Javier Marias.
●
●
Computer of Horrors
If you’re on the East Coast and still have power, don’t let Sandy ruin your Halloween – feast your eyes on these vintage horror paperback covers, instead. Stay safe!
Write Through It
Julia Heaberlin, whose novel Playing Dead published this week, discusses the not-so-pretty truths of writing, rejection, and perseverance.
●
●