Parul Sehgal in NYTBR
War and Hold On a Minute
Reading War and Peace was always a challenge, but how much harder is it in an age of constant distraction? At Salon, Mike Harris, a self-confessed distraction addict, writes about his experience tackling the Russian classic. You could also read our own Kevin Hartnett on the book’s effect on perception.
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Lit Pics, Part Deux
On Monday, March 11th, Electric Literature and Lazy Fascist Press celebrated the release of Sam Pink’s novel Rontel. (If you need a refresher, I wrote about Rontel a few weeks ago.)
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Pre-Speed
Once upon a time, the poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote a very proto-Speedboat kind of novel. It's only just getting published now.
These narrators are conspicuously powerless
Over at Prospect, Leo Benedictus takes a look into the subversive "hindered narrators" in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Room, and Pigeon English.
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The Great Silence
"I and my fellow parrots are right here. Why aren’t they interested in listening to our voices?" New short fiction from Ted Chiang over at Electric Literature (and introduced by Year in Reading alum Karen Jay Fowler)! Pair with our encyclopedic survey of primate lit.
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Fancy Yourself a Bowdlerizer
"Books can be dangerous objects–under their influence people start to wonder, dream, and think." In "celebration" of Banned Book Week, the New York Public Library has a quiz for you to find out how much you know about the freedom to read. See also our tribute to The Bluest Eye, one of the United States' most challenged books.