On Monday night Cheryl Strayed, also loved as The Rumpus‘s “Dear Sugar” advice columnist, was celebrated at Housing Works Bookstore. Tiffany Gibert gives us the scoop in the latest installment of #LitBeat.
Wild night
On Not Dating Natalie Portman
Moby, the electronic music producer currently elbowing his way back into the cultural imaginary, has cancelled his upcoming book tour.
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“I know what’s next— / the horns, the hymns.”
Recommended Reading: “Epistrophy” by Jake Adam York, who passed away last December.
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The Nervous Breakdown
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the new books and culture website The Nervous Breakdown. They’ve already got a great interview with Millions favorite Dan Chaon, as well as some interesting essays that I’m looking forward to digging into. I also like their “self-interview” series–where writers ask, and answer, their own questions.
Finnegans Wake Hits Chinese Shelves
I don’t know how they managed to translate the thunderwords into Chinese, but if sales figures indicate success, they did a bang up job. Finnegans Wake is huge in China right now.
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Nothing Has to Be Blown Up
“One of the joys of literature is that we can always push back against established ways of speaking and seeing—and nothing has to be blown up.” Mark Z. Danielewski, whose latest novel, the first installment of a 27-book series called The Familiar, has just been released, writes for The Atlantic‘s “By Heart” series about “signiconic” writing, the orneriness of his work and the graphic novel Here. Pair with our 2012 interview with Danielewski.
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Les Mosquees
Recommended Reading: Adam Shatz on Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission.
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Our True-Crime Obsession
In a conversation with Jonny Auping for Longreads, Rachel Monroe discusses our cultural obsession with violent crimes.
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