In an interview with the Guardian about Canada, Richard Ford talks about America: “I never had much conceptual idea of Canada being better. But whenever I go there, I feel this fierce sense of American exigence just relent. America beats on you so hard the whole time.” Also see: Michael Bourne’s review of the novel.
People who should feel rooted, but rarely do.
Kids These Days
“The complexity of texts students are being assigned to read has declined by about three grade levels over the past 100 years,” says Eric Stickney, the educational research director for Renaissance Learning.
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On Better Halves (or Twentieths)
Wondering what it’s like to have twenty different personalities? Kim Noble can tell you -- she’s published a memoir on the topic.
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Valley of the Publishers
How exactly does a cult classic make the leap to critically-acclaimed bestseller? It isn't easy. The Telegraph takes a look at the confusing, circuitous publishing history of Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls.
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Bard’s Bard
This week brought news that NOX, Antigonick, and Red Doc> author Anne Carson is headed to Annandale-on-Hudson to become Bard College’s “Visiting Distinguished Writer in Residence.” Carson’s praise has been sung far and wide on The Millions, and even earned admiration from a pair of Janes: both Alison and Hirshfield.
Dostoyevsky’s Yard Sales
This edition of Apartment Therapy with Ivan Ilych from the good people over at McSweeney’s will have you packing up shop and heading for St. Petersburg in no time. For a slightly more serious take on Tolstoy, here’s a piece on morals and manners in The Death of Ivan Ilych.
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How ethical are cocoa puffs?
There's a new Ethicist in town. Chuck Klosterman is taking over the NYT advice column, and I'm thinking, gee, I wonder what the author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs knows about ethics. His first column seems pretty legit, but I can't wait for him to introduce time-travel [pdf] and other hypotheticals.
The Fifth Borough
Enlightenment comes in many guises, and though we usually think of it as arriving in a koi pond or a distant mountaintop, we can also find it, as the protagonist of Year in Reading alum Tom McCarthy’s new novel attempts to do, on Staten Island. In The New Republic, David Marcus reads the book.