Picador’s digital marketing team put together a playful web series for Wayne Koestenbaum‘s Humiliation. John Waters has called the book “the funniest, smartest, most heartbreaking yet powerful book I’ve read in a long time.”
What do Liza Minnelli, Michael Jackson, and Abu Ghraib have in common?
‘There is no sincerer love than the love of food’ – Shaw
Lapham’s Quarterly has released their Summer 2011 issue. Its topic? Food. They’ve even compiled the issue’s entire bibliography in case you’re interested.
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Moneyball Trailer
The trailer for the film version of Michael Lewis’s Moneyball has arrived. (via Kottke, whose skepticism I share)
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J Dickens
Yea, yea, it’s Charles Dickens’ birthday. I’m sure you’ve heard, or at least been told by Google. But he’s only one artist born on this day. In addition, there’s James Yancey aka J Dilla, one of the most influential hip hop artists and producers of all time.
Anne Carson’s Latest
Anne Carson, author of Nox (reviewed by Jane Alison last year), has a new book out, Antigonick, in which the translator and poet collaborates with an artist and designer to produce an unconventional translation of Antigone. Unfortunately, Amanda Shubert calls it “the first book of Carson’s where … her scholarly impulse barricades textual meanings. Usually it provides a generous way in.” Yet despite its problems, Shubert notes there are still “moments of brilliance,” and indeed the act of “doing Sophocles as a graphic novel … is kind of ingenious.”
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David Mitchell’s Opera; David Mitchell’s Japanese Books
Working with composer Michel van der Aa, David Mitchell has written an “occult opera” entitled “Sunken Garden.” Meanwhile, the former head of buying at Waterstone’s has shared the Cloud Atlas author’s list of his favorite Japanese books. (h/t Sarah Emily Duff)
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Prepare for Departure
What’s the best book Mary Roach has read recently? Tim Johnston’s first novel, Descent: “I read the last 30 pages in an airport, 10 feet from the gate, and did not notice the boarding announcements. I missed my flight for literature.” Bonus: Here’s Roach’s interview with The Millions from a couple of years back.
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Hell is Other People
The Morning News posts a terrific (if slightly ingenuous?) take on the vacuity of the poet’s life in NYC: Frank O’Hara it ain’t. Whether this is a failure of the city, or merely of the poet, is an open question. (via The Book Bench).