A three-course feast for your eyes, dear readers: vintage Cuban movie posters courtesy of Will Schofield; minimalist book covers courtesy of Julie Oreskovich and AbeBooks; and little-known sheet music illustrations courtesy of the great René Magritte.
Cubans, Minimalists, and Surrealists, Oh My!
Out of Nowhere
Nell Zink, whose second novel comes out next week, has one of the lit world’s more unusual origin stories. An expat in Germany, she wrote her first novel in three weeks, after striking up a friendship over email with Jonathan Franzen. In the latest New Yorker, Kathryn Schulz details her story in full. You could also read Emily Gould’s recommendation of her work for Year in Reading.
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Let’s Start a Gallery of Found Art
“Italian art historians claim they have found 100 previously unknown works by Caravaggio.”
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CIA-Funded Artists
During the Cold War, the CIA became entrenched in cultural life through an organization named, ironically enough, the Congress for Cultural Freedom. In order to fight communism, they funded socialist artists. The Awl has compiled a list of literary journals, including the Kenyon Review and The Paris Review, that were once supported by the CIA.
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Roger Angell has worked at the New Yorker for 58 years.
In his profile of Roger Angell, Sridhar Paddu offers this astute observation from Charles McGrath: “Which is the greater—Roger the writer or Roger the editor? It’s kind of a toss-up.” Bonus: Angell’s piece about Don Zimmer, who just passed away this week, is well worth your time.
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Who owns a story?
“Who owns the story, the person who lives it or the person who writes it?” Both? Roxana Robinson writes for The New York Times’ Opinionator blog about “The Right to Write.”
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Bad Titles
“There’s something to be said for allusive titles: they can be intriguing and draw you in. And obscure titles at least make a change from the current trend for The Woman Who Climbed out of Her Car and Mowed the Lawn. (I made that one up, though it could be a bestseller). But when it comes to titles that are simply misleading, there are just far, far too many.” In a piece for the Guardian Moira Remond considers some of the most misleading and misunderstood book titles, such as John Williams‘s Stoner (which our own Claire Cameron wrote about here.)
Late American Novel Love
The brief excerpt of The Late American Novel that appeared in the New York Times Magazine this past weekend was also the first appearance of “A Tiny New Culture Section With No Name,” part of the Magazine’s redesign. At the Magazine’s “behind-the-scenes” blog, Editor Adam Sternbergh talks about the tiny new section and has some very nice things to say about The Late American Novel as well.
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Wonderful collection, thanks.
Johanna van Zanten