Brains!
An Interview with Jaimy Gordon
“I’ve spent my whole professional life swirling the eddies of the margins… What I want right now is to see my book in an airport. Then in a couple of years everyone will figure out that I’m too esoteric, and I’ll be back…" The New York Times posts a curious interview with the unconventional Jaimy Gordon, winner of this year's National Book Award.
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A New Book Review
Sharpen your pencils freelance book reviewers: The Wall Street Journal plans to buck the trend of disappearing book review sections by launching a weekly pull-out. Robert Messenger will edit. The New York Observer takes note of the storylines in play: Rupert Murdoch once again bucking conventional wisdom, The WSJ trying to go head to head with The New York Times in yet another high-profile venue.
Not So Super Journalists
Spider-Man is one of our favorite superheroes, but he's a terrible journalist. At The Atlantic, Daniel D. Snyder discusses how Peter Parker and Clark Kent are unethical reporters. "The media is, in theory at least, supposed to be honest. Putting on a costume, coming up with a fake name, and lying to everyone about what you really do are the opposite of that."
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“Hope this is clear”
Here are some things about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle you can learn from this questionnaire: he used the word “ditto;” he reserved his greatest admiration for “men who do their duty without fuss;" and he seems to have been quite happy with being Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
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Letters from the Frontier
Recommended Reading: The New Republic on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s new collection of letters and the end of the frontier. “Wilder was disillusioned by a country that no longer seemed to value the achievements of her generation.”
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