Tim Weiner won the Pulitzer Prize for Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Then, four years after its publication, he received a box of J. Edgar Hoover’s “personal files on [FBI] intelligence operations between 1945 and 1972” from a well-connected D.C. lawyer. That treasure trove of information has since wound up in his recently published book, Enemies: A History of the FBI, and he sat with NPR’s Terry Gross to talk all about it.
Tim Weiner Knows Every Secret Ever
Seamus Heaney on the Loyalists
Amid recent revival of sectarian conflicts in Ireland, Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney said he believes there is “never going to be a united Ireland.” He went on to ask, "Why don't you let them (loyalists) fly the flag?"
Clearness, Wetness, Coolness
Anne Carson has a new story in this week’s issue of The New Yorker, about swimming and its discontents. As she puts it, “People think swimming is carefree and effortless. A bath! In fact, it is full of anxieties.” Pair with her first published short story in the January issue of Harper's.
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The Muse of Impossibility
“[T]he use of similes and metaphors confesses the defeat of language: we must compare because we cannot say.” -From Alberto Manguel’s stunning essay “The Muse of Impossibility” in The Threepenny Review. (via The Rumpus)
I Am My Lighthouse’s Keeper
If you haven't fantasized about being a solitary lighthouse keeper, then you've either a) read some of the scariest bits from Susan Casey's The Devil's Teeth; or b) you haven't yet watched Aeon Magazine's gorgeous Behind The Light short film.
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Drinking Fitzgerald Under the Table
"Most of us can’t write like our heroes, but nearly every one of us can try to drink like them." Ian Crouch examines the myth of the great alcoholic writer and Charles Jackson's The Lost Weekend in The New Yorker's "The Book That Will Make You Never Want to Drink Again."
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You Tell Me What to Say
"I'm trying to think of something really suitable to say. What do you think I should say? Look, you tell me what to say and I'll say it." That was Doris Lessing, who found out she'd won the Nobel Prize from a group of journalists who surrounded her when she was exiting a taxi. NPR has that great audio, plus other reactions of former Nobel literature laureates, including Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, and Mario Vargas Llosa.
Our own fearless editor-in-chief, Lydia Kiesling, admires Lessing, but felt rather differently about reading one of her most famous works, The Golden Notebook: "Among other things, she did an uncanny job of creating a malaise that was actually infectious. It oozed right off the page and into my own spirit."
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Sacred Literature
“Ideas are interesting to me, and religions are a place where ideas have been very subtly embodied for thousands of years. All literature started as sacred literature.” Alexandra Alter interviews Salman Rushdie about his brand-new novel, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights.
Take It to the Bank
It’s notoriously difficult to figure out how to make a living as a freelance writer. The process forces the writer to learn the finer points of negotiation. At the Ploughshares blog, Steph Auteri writes about the “abstract mathematics” of her freelance career, presenting a list of everything she considers before taking on an assignment. Pair with: our own Nick Ripatrazone on teaching the business of creative writing.
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