A new library has been designed for the small village of Huairou on the outskirts of Beijing. Instead of adding a new building inside the village center, the architects chose a site in the nearby mountains, a pleasant five minute walk from the village center. “In doing so we could provide a setting of clear thoughts when one consciously takes the effort to head for the reading room.”
Liyuan Library by Li Xiaodong Atelier
Kindle to Impress
So you got a new Kindle for Christmas, and you’ve loaded it up with all our ebook recommendations? That’s great, but it may not be enough. Best to add a few ebooks to impress anyone who happens to come across your e-reader, just in case, and McSweeney’s has just the list.
Adichie Hints at Americanah Film
Now that we’ve casted the film adaptation of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, we’d like to turn your attention to Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie’s Americanah, which may be involved in an upcoming collaboration with Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o. Adichie framed the possibility this way in a recent interview: “I’m going to do the mysterious thing and say that Lupita might be making an announcement very soon.”
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Out There
As a cultural center with a very different makeup than the various home bases of the publishing world, Los Angeles often gets short shrift in discussions of literary cities. At the LARB (naturally), Sarah-Jane Stratford writes about the city’s importance to speculative literature, with an emphasis on the works of Ray Bradbury. Related: Tanjil Rashid on Bradbury’s Middle East connection.
Finding the Words
At Louisiana Channel, Colm Tóibín discusses finding the perfect sentence to start your book. In honor of the Oscars, Bill Morris wrote about the adapted screenplay for Tóibín’s Brooklyn.
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From Musician to Collagist
Musician and Super Bowl bird-flipper M.I.A. will release a 192-page hardcover book this October. M.I.A. will be “an autobiographical monograph in collages.” P.S. How good is the “Bad Girls” video?
New Release Date for JJS Book
John Jeremiah Sullivan’s new book, The Prime Minister of Paradise, now has a UK release date: June 9, 2016. Read our own Bill Morris’s review of Pulphead.
Rigoberto González on Teaching the M.F.A.
“I was enrolled in a writing program to imagine a cultured life, not just to dream about the rewards of being a writer.” Rigoberto González for Publisher’s Weekly on why he attended and later returned to teach at a M.F.A. program.
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