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This Week in Literary Journals
Writing By Heart
We’ve told you about The Atlantic’s By Heart series a few times before. Now, here’s a compendium of some of the series’ best advice on writing collected from the past year.
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King James
“He is the king, after all, and kings don’t lead revolutions. They rule wary of them.” Just about everything that Rowan Ricardo Phillips has to say about basketball is recommended reading at this point, and this piece on Lebron James and kingship is no different. This older piece on Steph Curry and the sustainability of brilliance is an early highlight.
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On The Road On The Screen
Francis Ford Coppola’s movie adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road may finally see the light of day. The film, directed by Walter Salles and starring the likes of Viggo Mortensen, Amy Adams, and Steve Buscemi, could hit French theaters as early as March 23rd.
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You Mother
Mother’s Day is just around the corner, and there’s no better way to prepare yourself than by taking a look at this list of ten fictional mothers who will have you thanking God for yours. From Emma Bovary of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary to Mrs. Lisbon of The Virgin Suicides, these mothers will remind you that it could always be worse.
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W.S. Merwin, Surrounded by Green
A. Hope Jahren remembers W.S. Merwin with an evocative description of visiting the Merwin Conservancy, an island filled with trees Merwin planted himself.
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“Only two people?”
In 1862, Fyodor Dostoevsky met Charles Dickens… Or did he? In a thoroughly researched piece for the Times Literary Supplement, Eric Naiman tells the thrilling story of how one – or two? or several? – hoaxers managed to dupe biographers, New York Times reviewers, London Review of Books editors as well as readers of numerous scholarly publications. Long story short: be wary of ostentatious “nipple” references.
Irony and Equanimity
Recommended Reading: Critic James Wood for the New Yorker on one of the most significant literary heroes of the Holocaust, Primo Levi. The three-volume Complete Works of Primo Levi is out this week.
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