More amusement has been prompted by The History of Love author Nicole Krauss’s arguably over-the-top blurb for David Grossman’s To the End of the Land: “To read it is to have yourself taken apart, undone, touched at the place of your own essence; it is to be turned back, as if after a long absence, into a human being.” Following Guardian’s subsequent contest for who can write the most absurdly laudatory blurb for a Dan Brown novel, Laura Miller at Salon dissects why author endorsements are so unreliable.
When Literary Praise Goes Too Far
Neglected Classics
Readers and writers and professors tend to read and talk about the same books over and over again. Moby-Dick? Check. Anna Karenina? Of course. But what about the books that deserve the same attention and love but don’t seem to get it? There are too many to name, of course, but The American Scholar has put together a list of 10 such “neglected classics.”
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The Lost Books
Over at NPR, Parul Sehgal recommends five books “that have been restored to us, that have been reissued, reimagined or — in one instance — presumed lost and discovered for the first time.”
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The Headless Horseman
“Every culture has its monsters,” and Jason Diamond writes about the Headless Horseman and one of the oldest American horror stories for Electric Literature.
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Online translations of Murakami’s short fiction
For those who can’t wait for Haruki Murakami‘s new novel, Will over at Wednesday Afternoon Picnic will be translating flash fiction from Murakami’s collection of short stories Kumozaru.
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Batuman the Bestseller
Brilliant, funny essay by Elif Batuman about “life after a bestseller,” including the time she asked Jonathan Franzen if had any weed. Bonus Link: Batuman at The Millions.
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On Rereading
Are rereadings better readings? Nabakov thinks so. But Patricia Spacks, in her new memoir On Rereading grapples with the guilty pleasure.
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For Your Weekend
Slate offers up a treatise on “the greatness of gin.” (via my friend Derek, who wrote: “for your book blog; there is too little booze on it”)
“This book will touch you where your bathing suit covers.”
“To read it is to have yourself taken apart, undone, touched at the place of your own essence; it is to be turned back, as if after a long absence, into a human being.”
Blech.