In a piece with which our own Mark O’Connell probably agrees, Tim Parks explains the Nobel Prize for Literature’s inherent silliness.
Silly Prizes
America’s Next Top Laureate
California’s San Mateo County is “seeking nominations for poet laureate, someone who can act as an ambassador for literary arts.” Do you have what it takes?
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Bukowski’s Rules
Want to write like Charles Bukowski? Just follow these simple rules.
Berlin Stories, Redux
“Home is the place where there is someone who does not wish you any pain.” Stop what you’re doing and go read this interview with Darryl Pinckney, author of Black Deutschland, over at The Rumpus. Here’s a great Millions essay on Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, which serves as a sort of (misguided) guide map for the protagonist of Black Deutschland.
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The Oldest Joke
This week in book-related graphics: The New Yorker takes a poll and ranks the funniest jokes from the world’s oldest joke book, the Philogelos.
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“Let the past collapse at the right time”
In the latest issue of the New York Review of Books, Ice Trilogy author Vladimir Sorokin looks at the current events related to Ukraine, Russia, and Crimea, and notes that “the Russian state’s ‘vertical power’ structure” (which is to say “monarchical structure”) is what keeps the Russian people held “hostage to the psychosomatic quirks of its leader.”
“I was going to be an essayist, and it was going to be awesome.”
Nonfiction writing might work wonders for history books, but the heart of the genre is still the essay. In a piece for The Morning News Martin Connelly discusses his youthful resolution to be an essayist, which he quickly forgot and then gradually remembered. There are also ironic license plates, convicts and a baby, just to jazz everything up a little bit.
You Do the Math
This week we learned Gary Shteyngart is at work on a memoir. This week is also when the annual Dachshund Spring Fiesta takes place in Washington Square Park. Has viral marketing reached its nadir?
A digressive and beautifully written announcement.
“Maybe everything is an organized mess at high speed”: in one of the more deeply buried leads in history, Brad Listi announces The Nervous Breakdown‘s new publishing imprint. And yes, I could just send you to the official press release, but I loved this piece.