An early example of the literary take-down. Willa Cather on Mark Twain: “He is not a reader nor a thinker nor a man who loves art of any kind.”
Willa Cather on Mark Twain
Down In a Heartbeat
“Thank God someone finally wrote that exact book. It’s like a bible for people who don’t believe in God.” Sebastian Junger at By the Book on Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.
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The Universal Author
In the sixties, when he was a student at Cambridge, Stephen Greenblatt came across a book of Persian art. The book inspired a lifelong interest in the region, which in part explains why, after the University of Tehran invited him to give the keynote address at the first annual Iranian Shakespeare Congress, he packed his bags and headed over to the Middle East. In The New York Review of Books, the Harvard professor and Swerve author writes about his experience.
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The Very Picture of Guilt
If the prospect of dealing with Frankenstorm is harshing your mellow this Halloween, you might want to look at The Paris Review Daily’s illustrated Telltale Heart.
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Bodies in Public
Édouard Louis discusses his third book, Who Killed My Father, as well as violence, poverty, and the gilets jaunes movement.
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