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
Introducing ‘The Staff Recommends’
The Millions is excited to be a founding member of a new ad venture called The Staff Recommends, John Warner and Andrew Womack, both of whom are associated with The Morning News and its wonderful Tournament of Books are behind the effort. The Staff Recommends is unique in that it only features books that “pass muster” with Warner, the venture’s editor and ombudsman. The first selection can be seen at the end of our “Recent Articles” section on The Millions front page and also in the sidebar on article pages. Enjoy!
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N.K. Jemisin on Octavia Butler
N.K. Jemisin writes an introduction to Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, in a reissued edition coming this April from Grand Central Publishing.
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My Shoes Remain On
“The Terminal C Baja Fresh sign gleams like living flame. I feast. The salsa bar is limitless. The refills overflow. I browse John Grisham courthouse thrillers within Hudson Booksellers for 15 minutes… or was it a millennia? Time is a breath to me now.” Jeff Loveness for McSweeney’s is TSA PreCheck, and now he is a God.
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Wilkinson on American Imposters
Millions staff writing appearing elsewhere: At In Character, my essay about Derrick Borte’s The Joneses and the idea of the American impostor (ECW).
Social Media Existence Precedes Essence
Over at McSweeney’s, Sarah Solomon has undertaken the Sisyphean task of bringing existentialism into the twenty-first century. In a series of brief vignettes, Solomon gives the oft-maligned Millennial generation the existentialist makeover they never asked for. Continue your study of the absolute indifference of the universe with this essay by Zach Pontz on The Meursault Investigation, a new novel by Algerian journalist Kamel Daoud that imagines Albert Camus’s famous The Stranger from the perspective of the unnamed Arab antagonists.
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Good Ol’ Fashioned Library Feud
Due to some outcry, Robert Darnton comes to the defense of the New York Public Library’s proposed expansion and revamping.
“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.