Have you Yanks seen BBC‘s 6-episode series cum feature film The Trip? If not, your interest will be piqued by this clip of the show’s main characters doing their best Michael Caine impressions. It’s on Netflix if you’re into laughter, merriment, and that sort of thing.
“When it gets loudly, IT GETS VERY LOUD INDEED”
Boy, Girl, Book?
Is the practice of using writing as a metaphor for birth, or birth as a metaphor for writing, in need of an overhaul? Stephanie Feldman for Electric Literature has some strong opinions on the subject. Motherhood on the brain, now? Check out this moving essay for The Millions on mothers and sons by Rachel Basch.
Meta-spoilers contained within
“To read something before it is accessible to all is both a privilege and an unfair advantage.” Je Banach’s notes on keeping the secrets of the books she writes about (e.g., Haruki Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage) are thoughtful, poignant, and tantalizingly spoiler-free.
Tuesday New Release Day: Smith; Campbell; Moore; Brooks; Marra; Ōe; Niffeneger
Out this week: M Train by Patti Smith; Mothers, Tell Your Daughters: Stories by Bonnie Jo Campbell; 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories edited by Lorrie Moore; The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks; The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra; Death by Water by Kenzaburō Ōe; and Ghostly: A Collection of Ghost Stories by Audrey Niffenegger. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half 2015 Book Preview.
The Patriarch
This week, Richard Ford published his first novel in a while to feature Frank Bascombe, the protagonist of his Pulitzer-winning book The Sportswriter. At Salon, our own Lydia Kiesling posits a through-line from Bascombe to a certain TV gangster, arguing that The Sopranos shares its view of manhood with Ford’s novels. You could also read our own Michael Bourne on Ford’s 2012 book, Canada.
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Blind Submissions
The editors of Apogee Journal have reserved themselves the right not to read submissions blindly. As they explain it, “Blind submissions don’t actually protect writers from the existing prejudices of editors, and they alone do not contribute to editors reading inclusively.”
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A History of Beauty
“‘Man is hungry for beauty. There is a void.’ Nine words. Take a moment. Say them aloud. What else is there to be said?” –Arthur Krystal’s essay on Umberto Eco’s History of Beauty, at Powell’s Books. (via Arts & Letters Daily)
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