Sure, the various TV recaps, screencaps, and Paris Review fan fiction will be a help, but let’s be honest, how long will those last? You could get through all of it today, in a binge. What you need, my friend, is a good book to sate that Mad Men craving you’ll be having now that it’s off the air again. Well, here’s a list of 10 great ones. That should do it. Oh, yes.
It’s not such a Mad Mad world afterall.
Interview with Gary Shteyngart
The Rumpus posts an amusing interview with Super Sad True Love Story author Gary Shteyngart: “You have a twenty-five-inch TV and eight million books. What are you, an idiot?”
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A Foreign Body within Oneself
Over at the Masters Review, Marjorie Sandor writes about the uncanny in literature and film, the origins of the word, and psychology. “Uncanny. Look it up in a standard collegiate dictionary, and you’ll get a brief, unhelpful definition. Seemingly supernatural. Mysterious. [orig. Sc & N. Engl.]. But the slippage has already begun. Seemingly.”
Keeping Up with the Librarians
Something you didn’t know you needed in your life: a squad of librarians recreating the “iconic” Vanity Fair Kardashian family photo shoot (via The Digital Reader). Also relevant: Alizah Salario‘s piece about the naming of North West.
She was the shadow of the waxwork lain
A waxwork being billed as “the most accurate likeness of author Jane Austen” ever created has been unveiled at her museum in Bath, England.
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The Darkest, Funniest Horse
“As a Pulitzer winner, it’s a unicorn.” For the Washington Post, book critic Ron Charles praised the Pulitzer Prize judges for awarding the Fiction prize to Andrew Sean Greer‘s Less, a comedic, “laugh-till-you-can’t-breathe funny” novel. Pair with: our post with all the 2018 Pulitzer winners.
Lesley Nneka Arimah: Artist of the Year
The Minneapolis Star Tribune has named author Lesley Nneka Arimah its 2017 Artist of the Year. They note, “Arimah is at the forefront of a growing number of young authors, primarily immigrants and writers of color — in the Twin Cities, as well as across the country — who are writing some of the most original and interesting fiction and poetry being published today.” Arimah is the author of the short story collection What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky, a 2017 Year in Reading favorite. She was also honored as one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 under 35” and named as a finalist for the John Leonard Prize. Congratulations!