Picador’s Gabrielle Gantz is holding monthly conversations with bloggers, and she posts the results on the publishing house’s fantastic Tumblr. Here she interviews Aidan Flax-Clark, associate editor of Lapham’s Quarterly, and gets him to discuss the similarities between his research and The Matrix.
Does This Mean Lewis Lapham is Morpheus?
Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction Announced
The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction have been announced! Winners for 2016 are Viet Thanh Nguyen for his novel, The Sympathizer and Sally Mann for Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs. You could also read Nguyen’s Year in Reading.
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Martin Amis on Philip Larkin’s Love Letters
"Much of the time, though, readers will be thinking that the 'literary correspondence' is something we're well shot of – a postwar embarrassment, like child labour, meat rationing and outdoor toilets." Martin Amis reviews the recent collection of Philip Larkin's love letters, Letters to Monica, at Guardian.
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We hold these truths to be self-evident.
A “typo” in the Declaration of Independence has been contributing to “a routine but serious misunderstanding” of the document, says researcher Danielle Allen.
Ed Ruscha’s Thirtyfour Parking Lots, Recreated Using Google Maps
This is a clever project from artist Pascual Sisto: Remake of Ed Ruscha's 1967 book Thirtyfour Parking Lots using Google Maps. (The original book) (via This Isn't Happiness)
The Benefits of Reading
Infographic of the Week: The Benefits of Reading presented by the National Reading Campaign at Electric Literature. Carolyn Ross, a New Jersey high school teacher, discusses how to make reading more enjoyable for students.
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Gone in the Dark
"And so the book we have available to us is not the one she intended for us to see — and to those who knew her only as the private spouse of a public figure, Michelle McNamara emerges from these pages as much of a mystery as the Golden State Killer does, gone in the dark." In Vulture, a profile of the late true crime writer Michelle McNamara whose book, I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, was published last week. From our archives: an essay on why one writer reads true crime novels.
The World of Books
"If they are honest with themselves, authors of color know what stories they’re supposed to tell, and know that attempts to move beyond those stories are not so often accepted." Matthew Salesses on the danger of cultural homogeneity in the world of books, over at Literary Hub. Pair with Salesses’s Millions essay on novel writing, inciting incidents, and beginnings.
L’Ecrivain
Recommended Reading: Alexandra Schwartz on Boris Vian's Mood Indigo.