Instead of capitalizing on his newfound momentum by hitting the campaign trail hard, Herman Cain this week opted to spend most of his time promoting his book, This is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House, which just arrived in retail stores this week.
Cain: Selling a Candidate or Selling Books?
Long and Deep
Last October marked the release of a new volume in The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway. Spanning three years in the writer's early twenties, the letters in the volume track events including his first bullfight, the birth of his son Jack and the publication of his first collection of stories and poems. In The New York Review of Books, Edward Mendelson reads through the new volume. This might also be a good time to read our own Michael Bourne on A Farewell to Arms.
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Reading is a Kafkaesque Experience
In the latest entry in By Heart, the Atlantic series we’ve written about a few times, Ben Marcus (who recently came out with a new book) reflects on the true meaning of the word “Kafkaesque.” Marcus interprets Kafka’s “A Message from the Emperor” as a parable about the difficulty of real human connection. (Related: there’s now a Kafka video game.)
The Agony and Ecstasy of a TAL Fact Checker
Surprising news emerged today about This American Life's Mike Daisey episode on Apple's Foxconn subcontractors (previously mentioned on The Millions here, and later here). Apparently portions of Daisey's visit to Chinese Foxconn factories were fabricated, and TAL's producers failed to ensure factual accuracy because he misled their efforts. As a result, the show has retracted the broadcast (PDF), Daisey has issued a statement of defense, and the next TAL episode will cover the entire fiasco.
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Talking Covers with Jonathen Lethem
Sean Manning (of Talking Covers) hosted a discussion with Jonathan Lethem last week at LA’s Last Bookstore. You can check out video and audio of the event over here, and the post also features an exclusive glimpse at the cover art for Lethem’s forthcoming novel Dissident Gardens. (Bonus: a look at Dissident Gardens in our Great 2013 Book Preview.)
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If I Were a Boy
“I like a lot of things about being a woman, but there are times and ways it’s a prison, and sometimes I daydream about being out of that prison.” The Guardian has a crack Rebecca Solnit essay about clothing, gender, and of course, mansplaining. Pair with our review of Solnit's The Faraway Nearby.
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Remembering Sue Grafton
Crime novelist Sue Grafton passed away earlier this week from cancer. Lit Hub and Vulture both have touching tributes to her and her detective series starring Kinsey Millhone. "Grafton belonged to a cluster of female authors who viewed the private-detective subgenre, previously dominated by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Grafton’s own hero, Ross Macdonald, in desperate need of subverting" and "The annual release of her latest Kinsey Millhone novel was, for generations of devotees, one of the year’s premier literary events. " Rest in peace Ms. Grafton.
The World According to Junot
"There’s a deep tendency in our society to view mainstream status quo literature as having no politics, which is completely untrue. It has a very strong political value; it just happens to be conservative." Junot Díaz drops some knowledge in an interview with Vox. Pair with his Millions Interview from a few years back.
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I’m sorry Rachel, but I kinda missed exactly where the campaign trail is in this first week of October 2011 for the election to be held in November 2012. Perhaps you could enlighten all of us as to its location.
Maybe it could be in getting one’s book out to a national audience?