Is Sergio de la Pava‘s A Naked Singularity the first great self-published novel of the new century? Aren’t you at least a little bit curious?
Triumph of the Vanity Press?
The Cartoon Curator
Didn’t find the latest New Yorker cartoon funny? Take it up with The New Yorker‘s cartoon editor, Bob Mankoff, who discusses the magazine’s “idea drawings” and humor in his TED talk, Anatomy of a New Yorker Cartoon. Bonus: check out Mankoff’s favorite New Yorker cartoons.
Activist Art
Over at Hyperallergic, art, activism, and literature collide in When We Fight, We Win!: Twenty-First-Century Social Movements and the Activists That Are Transforming Our World by Greg Jobin-Leeds and AgitArte. Pair with our own Bill Morris’s review of The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975.
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We’re Dying to Know
About a year ago, Patricia Lockwood famously asked The Paris Review how they felt about their namesake. In response, the magazine assigned top people to the project, who came back with a straightforward answer.
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The Nobel Will Return in 2019
“These elements of scandal, by now familiar in the #MeToo era, claimed an unusual casualty on Friday: The Nobel Prize in Literature, the world’s most prestigious accolade for writing.” In the wake of a sex abuse scandal, The Swedish Academy announced it will postpone this year’s award until next year when they will name two winners. In the meantime, maybe we should all mull over the problem with prestigious prizes.
Women and Poetry: A Discussion
Elisa Gabbert organized a roundtable discussion with several female critics to explore the twinned questions a) why are more men being published than women? and b) is it because there’s “also a lack of women writing about poetry?”
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Brave New Books
“In the new environment, science fiction writers needed new formulas – or even better, needed to have the courage to operate without pre-cooked recipes of any sort. In short, science fiction needed to grow up and take on the adult world, in all its messiness and uncertainty.” Ted Gioia pens a paean to sci-fi writers of the 1960s. Among his recommendations (including a reading list of 64 works): Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch, whose larger oeuvre is considered here.
Illustrated Goethe
At The Rumpus: illustrations by Harry Clarke for a 1925 edition of Goethe’s Faust.
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My comment seems to have been deleted, I guess because I included a link to a page with my thoughts on the book? Anyway, I liked it very much, although my praise is not quite so unqualified as Scott’s was. My more detailed opinion is not hard to find.
In short, Yes, I’m interested! The moment I read that post on Monday I ordered the book from the publisher. All it really takes is for someone to compare a book to Evan Dara’s books and it ends up making its way to the front of my “to read” queue.
However, I don’t think that Scott said it’s the first great self-published novel of this century. He specifically mentions that Evan Dara’s “The Easy-Chain” is self-published.
Anyway, I can’t wait to read this book. I am so thankful to book blogs who constantly help me spend a more than healthy chunk of my paychecks on books!
I’m 200 pages into A Naked Singularity right now, and it is absolutely great–to me, it’s not quite on the level of Dara’s The Lost Scrapbook, but what is? Regardless, De La Pava’s book is excellent, and definitely worth reading for anyone who likes Wallace, Gaddis, Pynchon, Dellilo, etc. etc.