The ever-irreverent Woody Allen weighs in on his all-time faves, among other things. A Catcher in the Rye unsurprisingly makes the list, as do more obscure picks like The World of SJ Perelman.
Woody Allen’s Favorite Books
BLM, the Novel
"Starr-Starr, you do whatever they tell you to do," he said. "Keep your hands visible. Don't make any sudden moves. Only speak when they speak to you." Read an excerpt from the Black Lives Matter–inspired YA novel The Hate U Give by A. C. Thomas, scheduled for release next June. See also some of our favorite writers on their favorite political writing, or our review of Nate Marshall’s poetry collection, Wild Hundreds, which critic Emmanuel N. Adolf Alzuphar called "the foremost articulation of contemporary blackness’s dynamism in literature."
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Zadie Smith in conversation
Carve out some time to watch all forty-five minutes of Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s recent “Between the Lines” conversation if you want to find out why Americanah qualifies as Adichie’s “fuck you” book. (You can also just skip to the 16:16 mark if you’re unable to carve out enough time.)
Business v. Literature
Have the literati really framed the way we think about capitalism by disparaging business practices? If so, Forbes' Bruce Upbin is asking readers for examples of books (other than Mildred Pierce) in which business is portrayed nicely.
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What We Can Learn from Goodnight Moon
Aimee Bender, Year in Reading alum and author of, most recently, The Color Master, writes for The New York Times about the structural genius of Goodnight Moon: "[The story] does two things right away: It sets up a world and then it subverts its own rules even as it follows them."
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A Supposedly Fun Thing We Aren’t Sure About
David Foster Wallace has become an American legend in his own right, so it makes sense that he'll be coming to the big screen soon. Jason Segel will play the famous writer in an adaptation of David Lipsky's Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself with Jesse Eisenberg as Lispky. Can one movie handle this much neurosis?
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