Last year we highlighted University of Nebraska Press among other small presses for the keeping in print otherwise little known future Nobel laureates. Today’s honoree Mario Vargas Llosa is quite well-known by comparison, but University of Nebraska Press has nonetheless (barely) run its Nobel streak to three straight years by way of Vargas Llosa’s inclusion in the press’ soccer writing anthology, The Global Game: Writers on Soccer.
Nobel Streak Stays Alive for University Press
“Everything goes and nothing matters.”
Recommended Reading: “When Literature Was Dangerous,” a history of censorship and the development of a culture “in which literature lacks urgency” and, perhaps, significance.
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Remembering Ronan
Last Friday, the writer Emily Rapp’s three-year-old son Ronan passed away from Tay-Sachs disease. Because Emily is part of the greater Rumpus family, the site is honoring Ronan’s memory by publishing a tribute by her friend Jennifer Pastiloff. They’re also encouraging people to help fight Tay-Sachs disease here.
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The Scoop on Amy Poehler
Recommended Reading: Amy Poehler’s New Yorker essay, “Take Your Licks,” on her summer job at an ice cream parlor. “If the style of the restaurant was old-fashioned, the parenting that went on there was distinctly modern. Moms and dads would patiently recite every item on the menu to their squirming five-year-olds, as if the many flavors of ice cream represented all the unique ways they were loved.” If this essay is any indication, her upcoming memoir is going to be great.
Dostoyevsky’s Yard Sales
This edition of Apartment Therapy with Ivan Ilych from the good people over at McSweeney’s will have you packing up shop and heading for St. Petersburg in no time. For a slightly more serious take on Tolstoy, here’s a piece on morals and manners in The Death of Ivan Ilych.
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Flummoxing Florals
With the cold front in America right now, you would never know it’s meant to be spring. To get yourself in the season, take The Guardian’s floral poetry quiz. Sample question: “What reminds Ezra Pound of ‘petals on a wet, black bough’?”
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Abandoned Books
This holiday season may set a record for gift returns, and perhaps that’s understandable given the economy. But what does it mean if you simply abandon your things instead? A recent survey by Virgin Atlantic reveals which books are most frequently left behind by their passengers, and it raises that very question.