Would you prefer to live in a city designed around parking, or a city designed around food?
In Other Words, All of America
Hughes and Plath Interviewed
Recommended Listening: A 1961 BBC interview with Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Pair with our review of Ted Hughes: The Unauthorized Life.
More Pale King
A couple of Pale King odds & ends: N+1 reruns Benjamin Kunkel‘s astute DFW memoriam, and Jonathan Raban tackles the religious side of the Wallace weltanschauung for the NYRB. (Whither Wyatt Mason?)
Nicholson Baker Overload
In addition to House of Holes‘ recent coverage in the New York Review of Books and Open Letters Monthly (and on The Millions), the latest edition of The Paris Review features an interview with “mad scientist of smut” Nicholson Baker. (You can check out an excerpt here.) But for those still unsatisfied, Adam Wilson has assembled a canon of raunchy literature.
Mark It Up
Recommended Reading: Laura Miller’s argument for writing in books. You could also read Sam Anderson’s marginalia in Dan Brown’s Inferno, as well as his Year in Marginalia from 2010.
On the New New Orleanians
Why, yes, I will link to anything Nathaniel Rich writes about New Orleans. You should appreciate the consistency.
Do They Get Screeners?
Amtrak Residency, First Class
The 24 writers selected to be part of the first Amtrak Residency Program have been announced. For more about the residency check out our past coverage of the program and our own Nick Ripatrazone‘s essay on reading and writing on trains.