Some kind soul has put the title story from Alvin Levin’s under-appreciated collection Love Is Like Park Avenue online for all to enjoy. That means you.
Highly Recommended
“…invisible worlds, unspeakable intuitions…”
At Salonica, Monica Carter interviews Muriel Barbery, author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, about her new novel, Gourmet Rhapsody.
●
●
The Last Reading
A Culture of Optimism
Reflecting on the sales figures of Lean In and How to Win Friends and Influence People, Sarah L. Corteau wonders: could it be that self-help is America’s quintessential genre? (You could also read Alan Levinowitz on the paradox of Christian self-help books.)
Baby It’s Warm Outside
“It turned out that the most successful Christmas records tended to have two common qualities: catchy, upbeat melodies and imagined unlikely scenarios for anthropomorphized yuletide characters.” Move over, Frosty! It’s beginning to look a lot like … an unseasonably warm December. Here is a brief history of Christmas songs and of their often-surprising rise from corny kitsch to global sensation.
Leave the Room Buried
Recommended Reading: Robert Macfarlane at The Guardian on what it means to be living in the Anthropocene age–in which human influence on the planet is permanent and profound–and how our writers and artists are responding to the crisis.
●
●
“I made up ice bats, there is no such thing.”
Anne Carson sits down for a profile with the New York Times, and the results are anything but traditional.
Alfred Kazin’s Brownsville
While reviewing Alfred Kazin‘s Journals, Christopher Byrd pays a visit to Brownsville and Kazin’s boyhood home.
Booker Prize Shortlist Odds
With the Booker Prize shortlist out, the bookies have updated the odds. Tom McCarthy’s C emerges as the new favorite and Peter Carey and Andrea Levy are surprising long shots.
●
●