“Every whole person has ambitions, objectives, initiatives, goals. This one particular boy’s goal was to be able to press his lips to every square inch of his own body.” The New Yorker posts a new short story, “Backbone,” by David Foster Wallace.
New Short Story by DFW
Heisenberg’s Memoirs
Although we’ll never get the chance to read Walter White’s memoir, we’ll get the next best thing. Bryan Cranston is writing a memoir due out next year. “With this book, I want to tell the stories of my life and reveal the secrets and lies that I lived with for six years shooting Breaking Bad,” he said. While you wait, grab a book from our Breaking Bad reading list.
James Salter on MH370
Well, this was unexpected. James Salter draws on his wartime flight experience to write a brief post about Flight MH370 for The New Yorker.
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That Moment When
“I can still remember with complete clarity the way I felt when whatever it was came fluttering down into my hands that day 30 years ago on the grass behind the outfield fence at Jingu Stadium; and I recall just as clearly the warmth of the wounded pigeon I picked up in those same hands that spring afternoon a year later, near Sendagaya Elementary School. I always call up those sensations whenever I think about what it means to write a novel.” Haruki Murakami on “The Moment [He] Became a Novelist,” excerpted on Lit Hub from the new double edition of his first novels, Wind/Pinball.
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The Gray Salt Sea, The Wine-Dark Sea
Writing for Lapham’s Quarterly, Caroline Alexander takes a deep dive into Homer’s “wine-dark sea” to uncover the origins and meaning behind the poet’s “incomprehensible” phrase.
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Thin Mints, a Challenger Appears
This has nothing to do with books, but if you’re like me, it’s important, life-altering, and worthy of constant news coverage: The Girl Scouts are releasing a new cookie for their 100th Anniversary. The lemony “Savannah Smiles” will commemorate the Scouts’ southern roots. Need help tracking down a box? I suggest the Girl Scout Cookie Locator app for your smartphone.
“Exeunt all, except the Clown.”
Recommended Reading: Mallory Ortberg wrote an entire short story based on stage directions at The Toast.
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The End of the Rainbow Room
Is the end nigh for the famed Rainbow Room? Well, if it is, it’ll live on through passages like this one from Alvin Levin’s Love Is Like Park Avenue.
Goodies from The New Yorker
In this week’s New Yorker, James Wood critiques Paul Auster, while his sometime-subject Don DeLillo offers refreshingly offbeat short fiction.
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uh, thought this was actually an excerpt from his upcoming, posthumously published, novel…