Millions favorite Geoff Dyer, author of Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, is going to start writing a column for The New York Times‘ Book Review. “Reading Life” will detail “the ups and down of his long relationship with the written word. What do we do to books and what do books do to us? How do they delight and derange?” His first column can be found here.
Geoff Dyer Gets New York Times Column
The Fictive Wallpaper
Artist Julia Callon creates dioramas inspired by nineteenth-century works of fiction such as Jane Eyre and "The Yellow Wallpaper."
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Fetishized Frocks
"When she was at Radcliffe, Gertrude Stein always wore black and refused to wear a corset. Samuel Beckett liked Wallabee boots and Aran sweaters and settled on his hairstyle when he was 17." Proving that author worship is still alive and well, The New York Times reviews a new book called Legendary Authors and the Clothes They Wore. Come for Mark Twain's white suit; stay for Zadie Smith's head wraps. Semi-related: how clothing makes the (fictional) woman and man.
On DFW, On Blogging
Practically everyone read Maud Newton's riff on David Foster Wallace's influence this weekend, but Edward Champion had some issues with it.
Identity Crisis
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So many wobbly assumptions
Laura Miller pokes some holes in that Dartmouth study about how little classic literature appears to be influencing contemporary writers.
Loyal Opposition
Widely linked to already, but worth reading: James Wood on A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book in the LRB. A mixed review that nonetheless makes me want to read the book is, for me, one mark of a good critic.
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Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018)
Ursula K. Le Guin has died at the age of 88, according to the New York Times and Le Guin's family. The prolific science fiction and fantasy writer — best known for her Earthsea series and The Left Hand of Darkness — explored themes like politics, gender, religion, and environmentalism. However, Le Guin wrote across genre and published over 20 novels, 100 short stories, 7 essay collections, 13 children's books, 5 volumes of translation, and a writer's guide. No stranger to awards, Le Guin most recently won the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Related Work for Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016. From our archives: The Millions interview with Le Guin from 2013.
If you don’t subscribe to the NY Times Book Feed, and just want to subscribe to Geoff Dyer’s column, I set up a Yahoo Pipe to do just that.
Of course, the NY Times Book Feed is pretty good, but I know a lot of us have RSS readers cluttered with stuff we never read. Anyhow, here you go:
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=8fa08bfe63f273de86c44725bdc39035&_render=rss