Filmmaker/novelist John Sayles has written a freaking huge novel revisiting the historical moment of Ragtime and Against the Day. Published by McSweeney’s (“We Print Enormous Books”), it’s getting strong pre-pub reviews.
Again, I Ask You: Is Big Back?
Ada Limón on Reading Ray Bradbury in High School
"I had never read stories like this." Ada Limón on being given Ray Bradbury's The October Country by her high school English teacher.
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Celebrating Beverly Cleary
With her 95th birthday approaching, Beverly Cleary gets the profile treatment in the Times. (previously at The Millions: Cleary’s underappreciated memoirs)
Jack Gilbert Dies at the Age of 87
Jack Gilbert died yesterday at the age of 87. Gilbert was the author of five standalone poetry collections—as well as additional collected volumes such as last March’s Collected Poems—and he was also a past winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award. For The LA Times, John Penner reviews the poet’s legacy. Or, perhaps as fitting tribute to Gilbert’s life and work, better to hear his own final lines to the poem “Failing and Flying”: “I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, / but just coming to the end of his triumph.”
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Maurice Sendak at the Opera
Wallace Ludel explores the imaginative sets Maurice Sendak designed for a dozen operas and ballets, as well as the author's fascination with the stage.
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Reading As Punishment
First a judge ordered a man to write a book report, and now Brazil is offering inmates sentence reductions for every book they read. When did reading shift from pleasure to punishment?
Ireland’s Poet President
Did you know the recently elected president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, is actually a noted poet? Though the Guardian’s own Carol Rumens would disagree.
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