Chinua Achebe, best known for his novel Things Fall Apart, is working on a memoir to be titled There Was a Country.
Achebe Memoir on the Way
Putin Wins the World Cup
“Putin, like Hitler, understood that the purpose of spectacles is to dazzle the eye while clouding the mind.” For the Daily Beast, staff writer Bill Morris writes about the thuggish dictators who love the propaganda of the World Cup. (If you haven’t already checked out our list of seven great soccer reads, do it now!)
Secret Machines
Recommended Reading: Cody Delistraty’s interview with Kazuo Ishiguro. You could also read our own Lydia Kiesling on the author’s new novel The Buried Giant.
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Murakami’s Translator
Jay Rubin, who spent a year and a half translating the first two books of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84, has some interesting things to say about the prolific author.
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Platform Proliferation
The Atlantic points out another consequence of the digital revolution: books now come in multiple formats at dozens of price points. A symptom of publisher panic? A boon for readers?
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James McBride on Kurt Vonnegut
McBride recounts a once-in-a-lifetime lunch meeting with one of his longtime literary heroes, Kurt Vonnegut.
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