The October 15 Boston Book Festival boasts a lot of wonders, but one event you shouldn’t miss is “The Wire” writer and producer George Pelecanos alongside series cast members. They’ll discuss “issues of race, class, and institutional failure as portrayed by the most critically-acclaimed series in television history.” Last month, a similar event was held at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe to launch the issue of Criticism dedicated to “Why The Wire (Still) Matters“.
The Wire
Post-Apocalypse Now
“I’ve turned paranoid lately. When I’m in an airport, I look at the people around me at the gate, trying to suss out who might make a good ally if things went bad. I carry two plastic tubs full of warm clothes, hiking boots, and first-aid supplies in the back of my Subaru at all times. I have as large a volume of canned and dry goods in my pantry and laundry room as the shelves will hold.” Rebecca Onion for Slate on the appeal and contagion of “prepper fiction.” Pair with our review of Claire Vaye Watkins‘s Gold Fame Citrus, one of the recent bumper crop of apocalyptic narratives.
●
●
E.M. Forster’s Prescient Sci-Fi Story
Gabrielle Bellot examines "The Machine Stops," the sole science-fiction story by E.M. Forster, which contains eerie echos of today's socially distanced world.
●
●
●
John Jeremiah Sullivan on William Faulkner
Do I need to hype this one up? I shouldn’t. John Jeremiah Sullivan writes about William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!, or what some call the “greatest Southern novel ever written.”
●
●
SRSLY PHENOMENAL
We live in a truly marvelous time. By that, of course, I mean we live in an age when students at the London School of Economics can hand in 98-page (PDF) dissertations about LOLCats.
●
●
Can’t-Do Spirit
“America has always been able to countenance beggars, short-con men, and nine-to-fivers who just can’t get ahead, but we’ve never known what to do with the type of person who could have been really big but chose not to make the concessions required.” The Believer takes a look at the paradox of Nelson Algren.
●
●
Why Barry Writes
In the pages of Oxford American, the late Barry Hannah confesses to writing “out of a greed for lives and language.”
●
●