City of Quartz author Mike Davis is writing a biography of the Los Angeles Times‘ bygone publisher Harrison Gray Otis. Appropriately, the installments will be serialized by the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Serializing in the Digital Age II
Hard Mode
Serious reading is harder than ever. With so many distractions around, it’s incredibly difficult for a novel to keep our attention. In The Nation, Joanna Scott makes a case that careful reading is in danger, and builds a case for preserving difficult fiction. You could also read our own Nick Ripatrazone on trying to teach Thomas Pynchon.
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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."
“Almost Like the Blues”
Recommended reading (and listening): "Almost Like the Blues" by Leonard Cohen.
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