Freedom, The Imperfectionists, and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet were some of the biggest books of the year, both literally and among our readers. But which one of them could stop a bullet for you? Electric Lit posts a video of the necessary research.
Which Book Can Save Your Life?
“Depressing day”
A while back, I linked to a contentious letter between Saul Bellow and Jack Ludwig, written not long after Bellow found out Ludwig was sleeping with his wife. Now, here’s a (somewhat) less angry piece of correspondence, sent from Philip Larkin to Barbara Pym. Sample quote: “Has anyone ever done any work on why memories are always unhappy?”
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Frances Cha on Thinking in Two Languages
Frances Cha discusses the process behind writing her book If I Had Your Face, as she navigated two languages and audiences.
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The aMTrAk Residency
Remember that time Amtrak offered a 10-day train residency, and the internet experienced a collective freakout because trains are literary catnip, and then we found out it was kind of a scam? Barnard Zine Library does, too. In honor of that cultural moment, they recently sponsored an “MTA Residency” that, while less glamorous, has already yielded beautiful work.
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Making It
China plans to spend millions “sprucing up” Gaomi, the hometown of recent Nobel winner Mo Yan.
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Wollstonecraft Image Beamed onto Palace
Mary Wollstonecraft’s image was beamed onto the Palace of Westminster during Wednesday’s rush hour to raise money for another image – the first ever statue of the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women.
Infinite Stupidity
Why innovate when you can just Google and copy? Mark Pagel on the perils of “being domesticated by these great big societal things, such as Facebook and the Internet.”
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In Defense of Anti-Writing
Over at the handsomely redesigned Open Letters Monthly, yours truly weighs in on William T. Vollmann.
Definitely Adam Levin’s “The Instructions.” Weighing in at 1,030 pages, I think it could stop just about any bullet.
Nothing short of Bill Vollmann’s seven-volume Rising Up and Rising Down is likely to stop a bullet.