At the Guardian, Alain de Botton, author of the forthcoming Religion for Atheists, considers whether “museums of art are our new churches” and says “modern museums of art fail to tell people directly why art matters.”
Why Art Matters
Tuesday New Release Day: Wolfe, Attenberg, Snicket, Onion
Tom Wolfe is back with his new novel Back to Blood (our review) and Jami Attenberg’s The Middlesteins is out. Lemony Snicket is kicking off a new series for kids, illustrated by artist Seth. Finally, do you want to know everything about everything? The Onion is looking out for you with its new Onion Book of Known Knowledge: A Definitive Encyclopaedia Of Existing Information.
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Women and Poetry: A Discussion
Elisa Gabbert organized a roundtable discussion with several female critics to explore the twinned questions a) why are more men being published than women? and b) is it because there’s “also a lack of women writing about poetry?”
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Dial G
“Genius” is a loaded term. Its application usually says more about the person making the judgment than it does about the genius in question. In The Guardian, Sophie Hannah argues that the term isn’t used enough to describe one writer in particular: Agatha Christie. You could also read Daniel Friedman on the terrible secret of all crime fiction.
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An Existential Test
“It is a privilege and a gift and an honor to be a debut author, but it is, above all things, an existential test.” Courtney Maum writes about the darker side of publishing a first book.
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The Oracle
John Warner is today reprising his popular book-recommending engine (i.e. his brain), that he unveiled to great effect during the Tournament of Books earlier this year.
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My Struggle Continues
Ben Parker has published a review in The Los Angeles Review of Books of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle: Book Four, which was recently translated by Don Bartlett. Read Knausgaard’s thoughts on repetition and its reflections in the natural world at The Millions.
The Books That Break Reading Slumps
Michael Seidlinger asks authors about the books and writers that got them out of particularly tough reading slumps.
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Talking with Colum McCann
“I’ve been writing about ‘real’ characters and placing them in a shaped, or fictional, world. Writing TransAtlantic, there was never really a plan, at the early stages, to question the line between fiction and nonfiction. I just went on instinct, and then these worlds started to braid.” The Rumpus interviews Colum McCann.