Over on The Busy Signal, Matthew Hunte presents 75 Notes For An Unwritten Essay on Literary Prizes. (22. “Want it? Want it? Of course I wanted it. I wanted it so fucking bad I could taste it!”)
75 Notes for an Unwritten Essay on Literary Prizes
Blue Nights: Released Next Week
Jacket Copy visits Joan Didion at her apartment in Manhattan to discuss Blue Nights, which moves back and forth between the death of Didion's 39-year-old daughter, Quintana, six years ago and the author's reflections on aging. The book is a much anticipated follow-up to 2005's The Year of Magical Thinking, in which Didion wrote about the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne.
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The Wrath of the Translator
The English Illiad, compared: a look at the translations of Robert Fagles, Anthony Verity, Stephen Mitchell, and more.
Studies of Intensity
In his new book, one of three coming out now or soon, Australian poet Clive James assembles his decades of knowledge into a series of mini-essays, many of which originally appeared in Poetry magazine. At Slate, Katy Waldman reads the collection, explaining why it gave her the urge to quote James ad infinitum. You could also read our own Garth Risk Hallberg on the poet’s book Cultural Amnesia.
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So Much Drool
Sorry for the mess but we're still drooling over these photos of A Brief History of Seven Killings author Marlon James's Minneapolis loft. Slightly less glamorous but (we think) of equal literary importance, these pictures of our own writing spaces.
Ulin on King
David Ulin offers a brief consideration of Stephen King. King's work, Ulin writes, "exposes, with real acuity, a lot about who we are."
Introducing The Offing
Trend alert: there's been a surprising proliferation of literary site spinoffs lately. First The Toast began The Butter, and then Electric Literature started Okey-Panky. Now the Los Angeles Review of Books joins the movement with The Offing, an online lit mag launching later this month.