A literary event with an extremely star-studded guest list will be held next month for a good cause. The World’s Most Literary Rent Party Ever will raise money for author Charles Bock’s wife, who is receiving treatment for leukemia, and will include Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Safran Foer, Mary Gaitskill, Joshua Ferris, Rivka Galchen, Amy Hempel, Nicole Krauss, Rick Moody, Richard Price, George Saunders, and quite a few others.
The World’s Most Literary Rent Party
We Owned Ourselves
“To be able to sing under that kind of oppression I think, in a lot of ways, is the very essence of survival, of a people, of the ability to have to the hope to make something beautiful amongst so much wretchedness.” Tyehimba Jess, author of the fantastic new collection of poetry Olio, is interviewed over at The Literary Hub.
November Is the Month for Madrileños
Late November brings work of another favorite Madrileño to the forefront. The final book of Javier Marías‘s Your Face Tomorrow trilogy, Poison, Shadow, and Farewell, will be published at the end of the month by New Directions. The incomparable Marias will make two New York appearances, a reading at the 92nd St Y (with Paul Auster) and a conversation with Paul Holdengräber at the New York Public Library.
●
●
Introducing Full Stop
A new lit-focussed site has launched recently. Full Stop already has an impressive number of reviews on display alongside interviews with Gary Shteyngart and Charles Burns.
●
●
Tales from Swankville
When Pleasanton mom Siah Fried and her co-author wrote Tales from Swankville, a book about hyper-competitive parenting in suburbia, they didn’t expect their neighbors to take it so personally.
Full Stop Goes Partisan
Here’s a year-end series with some sharp teeth. In the spirit of The Partisan Review‘s provocative questionnaire from 1939, Full Stop is asking dozens of writers “specifically political questions”. The series began yesterday with Marilynne Robinson.
●
●
Nicole Krauss Needs to Learn How to Relax
Nicole Krauss has taken her family to deserts in Chile, a lice-infested nursery in Tel Aviv, Sarajevo, Capri, and even the Arctic, but she’s never been on a beach vacation. She tries to relax and searches for the meaning of paradise in Turks and Caicos in her essay for Condé Nast Traveler.
●
●
A Conversation with Morgan Parker
On his podcast, David Naimon spoke with poet Morgan Parker about her new collection, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé. It’s a book “at the intersections of mythology and sorrow, of vulnerability and posturing, of desire and disgust, of tragedy and excellence,” Naimon says. (Bonus: Parker’s book was recently featured in Nick Ripatrazone’s list of five poetry collections you should buy.)
●
●