Adam Gopnik at the New Yorker comments on why we still write to win prizes (and hails Mario Vargas Llosa for having “a lively personal life that includes once punching out another future laureate…Gabriel García Márquez, reportedly over something to do with Mrs. Vargas Llosa. The Nobel thus not only crowns a career but provides the basis for a fine future Javier Bardem/Antonio Banderas movie.”)
Writing to Win
Writing Isn’t For Everyone
“I hate to break it to you but everyone does not, in fact, have a book in them.” For The Outline, literary agent Kate McKean writes about the difference between good stories and good books—and what it takes to write the latter. Pair with: an essay on the books that fight back
Interviewing Meghan Daum
Guernica interviews Meghan Daum about The Little House on the Prairie, finding a home in Los Angeles and the necessity of restructuring the conversation about children. Pair with our own Hannah Gersen‘s review of her essay collection The Unspeakable and Edan Lepucki‘s take on Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids.
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A New Kind of Book Review
A new kind of book review: 5 artists interpret and critique literature through works of visual art.
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Tao Lin in the News
Tao Lin signed a book deal with Vintage Books for his forthcoming novel Taipei, Taiwan. Carles of HipsterRunoff fame wished the author well with an eCard, and the New York Observer discussed the author’s developing movie project.
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This is the way the film ends
Blasphemy Alert: They’re giving the film version of August: Osage County a “less downbeat” ending. Curse you, Harvey Weinstein! Is nothing sacred? Can a woman not lament the disintegration of her life, family, and mental stability while the final lines to T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” are read by her housekeeper? Has America gone soft?
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Sleep Talkin’ Man
“I can’t control the kittens. Too many whiskers! Too many whiskers!” A woman writes down everything her husband says in his sleep. Why isn’t this on Twitter? (via attackattack.tumblr.com)
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Not Ideal
“The most unfortunate / Thing about history / Is not pornos. No, it is how Americans / (And we were talking about men but may I take this opportunity / To be more inclusive, because inclusivity is in!) were once better than they are at present.” In which an imagined David Brooks writes a sestina about misogyny. Here’s a Millions piece in which the real-life Brooks is thought of not as a pariah, but as a harbinger of hope.