At The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani gets in an early review of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, heralding it “his most deeply felt novel yet.”
Michiko Kakutani on Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom”
On Zadie Smith and Barack Obama
Electric Literature’s blog The Outlet begins a series of essays with the question: “Is Zadie Smith the Barack Obama of literature?”
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Doing More With Less
Nollywood is the name given to Nigeria’s $500 million movie business. For about the same amount of money that was spent on the promotion and production of James Cameron’s Avatar, Nollywood is able to churn out a thousand films each year, trailing only Bollywood and Hollywood in terms of revenue.
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Everything That Rises Must Be Filmed
Recommended Listening: this episode of the Ryder + Flye podcast in which Jason Diamond and Margaret Eby discuss Southern Catholicism, 70s cinema, and why it’s so darn hard to make Flannery O’Connor’s stories work on the screen.
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Second Opinions
How did Herman Melville’s friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne affect the writing of Moby-Dick? It’s a hard question to answer with any certainty, but Patrick James Dunagan gives it a shot, drawing evidence from Erik Hage’s book on the authors’ relationship. You could also read Hester Blum’s argument that Moby-Dick is the greatest American novel.
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Points of Entry
When somebody you’re talking to brings up a writer — say Richard Russo — that you haven’t read, but should have, you probably say you haven’t read them because you “just don’t where to start.” Unfortunately, the folks at Book Riot just published a book, Start Here, that might blow up your excuse.
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iStephen Fry
Stephen Fry joins “the congregation at the Church of Apple” for the launch of the iPad and shares his thoughts on the company and its newest product.
I wonder what Franzen thinks of her now. He once called her “the stupidest person in New York City.”