Alex Ross, New Yorker music columnist and author of Listen To This, is interviewed for The Browser.
“I think the role of the critic will remain strong even if the media landscape is constantly changing.”
Borges and Bergoglio
In an interview with America Magazine, Pope Francis admits that the authors he most admires are Fyodor Dostoevsky, Johann Hölderlin, The Betrothed author Alessandro Manzoni, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. He also goes on to share an interesting anecdote about his compatriot Jorge Luis Borges: “In the end I decided to send Borges two stories written by [the secondary school] boys [I was teaching]. I knew his secretary, who had been my piano teacher. And Borges liked those stories very much. And then he set out to write the introduction to a collection of these writings.”
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Just Listen
For this month’s fiction podcast at the New Yorker, Edwidge Danticat reads two Jamaica Kincaid stories, “Girl” and “Wingless,” following the publication of Kincaid’s recent See Now Then.
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Patron Half-Elephant
Francine Prose has an idiosyncratic theory that the Hindu god Ganesh is a vital part of her writing process. In a VQR essay, she explains that her portrait of the deity (which she purchased forty years ago at a bazaar in Mumbai) gives her a kind of confidence that goes beyond superstition. As support for this belief, she points out that Ganesh is known in some quarters as “the writer’s god.”
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Curiosities: Astronaut Food
Jonathan Evison talks with independent publicist Lauren Cerand about promoting books.Kindle shenanigans: “This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers.”Marking the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, Kottke puts together a huge post of photos, videos, and links in commemoration.Our recent item rounded up all the “big” books coming out in the latter half of the year. PW alerts readers to “10 promising fiction debuts” coming this fall.Jacket Copy concludes its Pomo Month with an annotated list of “61 essential postmodern reads.”New uses for card catalogs. (via)The second issue of online literary journal The Critical Flame has arrived.Mark Sarvas offers a four-part interview with Joseph O’Neill. “I think I start with one idea. In Netherland, it was cricket in New York. Then there is an accumulation of sentences, and often just single words. Words that interest me. And I sort of build it up like a poem.”Amazon names the “Best Books of the Year… So Far.”
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The Greatest Hall Under Heaven Found
Heorot has been found in Lejre, Denmark. Archeologists excavated what could be King Hrothgar’s famous mead hall in Beowulf. No remains of Grendel have been dug up yet.
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Another Type of Lyric Essay
Specter Magazine is calling for “hip-hop inspired piece[s] of Creative Non-Fiction,” and, wisely, they know that the best way to inspire participation is with a Beanie Sigal and Jay-Z track.
The 69 Rules of Punctuation
Infographic of the Week: Electric Lit presents the 69 Rules of Punctuation in one color-coded, aesthetically-pleasing chart.
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