At the New York Times, Elif Batuman has a long and absorbing article on the trial over Kafka’s manuscripts: “It’s impressive that [Kafka’s] sisters had between them four lawyers, although, to put things in perspective, Josef K. at one point meets a defendant who has six.”
Kafka’s Last Trial
The State of the State’s Libraries
The state funds for California’s libraries have been dwindling for the better part of a decade, but now they face total elimination. Put into concrete terms: in the 1999-2000 fiscal year, libraries received $56.8 million from the state; in the 2008-2009 fiscal year, that number was down to $12.9 million; now they’ll receive $0.
Graveless Dolls
Still working on your costume for Halloween this year? Check out these recommendations from Electric Literature for some hilarious costumes based on some really great short stories.
●
●
The Bard 2.0
To celebrate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death in 2016, he’s getting a makeover. Jeanette Winterson is writing a cover of The Winter’s Tale, and Anne Tyler will be revamping The Taming of the Shrew for a 21st century audience. While you wait, watch Joss Whedon’s update of Much Ado About Nothing.
The Amazing Production of Kavalier & Clay
Seattle’s Book-It Repertory Theatre has adapted all 636 pages of Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay for the stage.
Shifting from Criticism to Fiction with Lauren Oyler
Lauren Oyler discusses how writing literary criticism helped her define the intentional, dynamic style she wanted in her own fiction.
●
●
●
Man Middle School Was Rough, Huh?
“[B]eing twelve is its own psychosexual dystopian satire, and I was not in on the joke.” Abbey Fenbert writes for Catapult about Aldous Huxley‘s Brave New World, reading-while-tween, and being a seventh-grade book censor. See also: our own brave editor-in-chief, Lydia Kiesling, on reading Huxley a week after last November’s election.
●
●
What’s Important
The Los Angeles Review of Books looks at a new history of K Records, the influential Olympia, WA-label that gave us Beat Happening, Modest Mouse, and Kurt Cobain’s arm tattoo.
●
●