Buzz Poole expands Macy Halford‘s riff on the consequences of writing without reading. In the process, he refers back to last month’s popular piece here at The Millions by Steve Himmer.
Writing Without Reading
The Quality of No Qualities
The new book Robert Musil and the NonModern offers David Winters a chance to revisit The Man Without Qualities. (While you’re at it, check out the essay on literary theory Winters wrote for us in September…and Matthew Gallaway‘s piece on Musil from January.)
The Inspiration for Uncle Tom’s Cabin
A professor at Clemson University believes he’s identified the fugitive slave who was harbored for one night in the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Moreover, the professor believes that the man was “an inspiration for the novel [Uncle Tom’s Cabin]. I think his pain touched [Stowe] and helped her to act.”
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J. D. Salinger’s Best Unpublished Stories
Writing for Airship Daily, Freddie Moore provides an overview of ten of her favorite unpublished J. D. Salinger stories. She also shares instructions on how to find – while being careful not to link directly toward – a “207-page trove of 22 out-of-print pieces available online.” This is for the best, considering the relationship between the Catcher in the Rye author, his unpublished works, and U.S. copyright.
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Eat Your Heart Out, Fyre
Planning to attend this Saturday’s National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.? The Washington Post has provided five sample itineraries. And for an entirely different, vicarious trip, revisit Mythili G. Rao‘s account of visiting the Jaipur Literature Festival a few years back: “To voice their disapproval of the circumstances of Salman Rushdie’s absence, four writers read from The Satanic Verses — a book that has been banned in India. They were advised to leave. What kind of real intellectual discussion could go on in a setting that had proved itself so hospitable to self-censorship?”
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The Steve Jobs Memory
As a result of Wednesday night’s tragic news, the release date of Walter Isaacson‘s forthcoming Steve Jobs has been pushed forward to October 24th. It already holds the #1 spot on Amazon.
How Many Palins Does It Take To Break Even?
Will HarperCollins sell 400,000 copies of Going Rogue? (My guess: you betcha.)
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Kirkus Prize Finalists Announced
Starting this year, Kirkus Reviews will award the impressive sum of $50,000 each to three winners of their new Kirkus Prize, which recognizes works of fiction, nonfiction and children’s literature. This morning, they announced their first-ever batch of finalists, a long list including a few names who should be familiar to Millions readers: Elizabeth Kolbert (for The Sixth Extinction, which we published an essay about); Year in Reading alum Sarah Waters (for The Paying Guests); Thomas Piketty (for Capital in the 21st Century); New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast (for her memoir); and Siri Hustvedt (for The Blazing World, which we reviewed). Their judges will announce the winners on October 23rd.
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