It almost sounds too terrifying to be true. Your book is reviewed by Christopher Hitchens in the New York Times Book Review and he opens with: “This is an extraordinarily irritating book” (and it gets worse from there, and deservedly so). It happened to David Mamet and his new book The Secret Knowledge.
Hitchens on Mamet
Russian Lit Quiz
Pop quiz for all you fans of Russian literature: What’s the protagonist’s first name in Doctor Zhivago? Hint: It isn’t “Doctor.”
●
●
(Don’t) Judge a Book by Its Cover
Dan Piepenbring writes at The Paris Review on judging a book by its cover in the Weimar Republic and the sheer mastery of some of the early twentieth-century German cover designers. Two related pieces from The Millions: our own Bill Morris on the pleasures of the typewritten book cover and Matt Allard on reimagining some popular cover art.
Great Deal on Siri Hustvedt’s Earlier Novel
If your interest in Siri Hustvedt’s work was piqued by Hannah Gersen’s review of The Blazing World this week, then you’ll be thrilled to learn that the Kindle version of Hustvedt’s earlier novel, Summer Without Men, is available through 4/8 for the low, low price of $3.99.
●
●
4 comments:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
How 3d Projectors Make 2d Movies Worse
Roger Ebert explains how the time-consuming process of changing the lenses on complicated new 3d projectors is diminishing the theater-going experience.
●
●
Different, Quieter Passions
“It soon emerged that there is a uniquely British brand of feeling, a blend of distress and composure marked by a touching compulsion to keep up appearances in the face of interpersonal dissolution. For all its prevalence and subtlety, this mode of engagement is difficult for the uninitiated to decipher or even to discern, and I would have remained oblivious of it if not for the works of Dame Iris Murdoch, a connoisseur of British emotional life in all its baffling permutations.” On Iris Murdoch and the British brand of distress and composure.
●
●
Perhaps Mamet is writing some sly parody of right-winger thinking and we’re just not smart enough to get the joke. That’s what I’d like to believe.
That’s the thing about good parodies of crazy: You can’t tell them from the original. I kind of hope you’re right, Bat of Moon.
Makes me grateful to be invisible.
No, Mamet is a scary person. All of his non-fiction is deeply disturbing.