Leonard Cohen’s new album Old Ideas is getting glowing reviews. Slate says of Cohen, “When it comes to lyrics, he’s second to no one—including Dylan.”
Cohen’s New Old Ideas
The Relevance of Plasma
The vigilant excavators at Longform have dug up a fairly old piece, written by the essayist Jo Ann Beard, on a time in her life taken up by cagey dogs, vanishing husbands and the plasma in Saturn's rings.
A Book about Beauty
In his latest Year in Reading, Chigozie Obioma told us about Eka Kurniawan’s Beauty Is a Wound, “the howling masterpiece of 2015...a howl, an outrage, and a sheer burst of particular talent.” In an illuminating interview for Electric Literature, Kurniawan discusses the label “magic realism,” epic creation, and his ideas for his next novel.
Writing the Godfather of Soul
"Kill ‘Em and Leave is [James] McBride’s own testament to [James] Brown’s philosophy. It’s a stunningly unorthodox book, indifferent to the conventions of biographical nonfiction ... The book is a hybrid of forms, largely a telling of Brown’s life story and partly a telling of McBride’s search for that story, with digressions about the author’s own life, essayistic ruminations on Brown and his music, and free, looping riffs that have the energy of improvisation." On James McBride's unusual, unorthodox biography of the unusual, unorthodox James Brown.
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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.
Why College Professors Don’t Envy the Young
On Why College Professors Don't Envy the Young, at the Chronicle of Higher Education.
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Turkey Days
Happy almost-Thanksgiving to our American readers! To celebrate, why not whip up a nice bowl of Everyone Get the Hell Out of of the Kitchen Right Now Before I Kill All of You Cranberry-Orange Dressing and pray that none of your other recipes have mistakes in them.
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