You should get to know Natasha Trethewey, our newly minted Poet Laureate, and here are a few good places to start: The Missouri Review’s Summer 2010 interview with the poet, and Virginia Quarterly Review’s round-up of some of her poems.
Trethewey Named Poet Laureate
Put on Your Thinking/Dunce Cap
At Slate, David Wolf reviews a new biography of Rene Descartes, who he claims has developed a reputation as the philosophy world’s favorite punching bag.
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Who Keeps the Gatekeepers?
Are you embarrassed about your lack of literary inheritance? You’re not alone. Here’s a great piece by Annie Liontas at The New York Times on those first, lonely forays into the literary world: “But I see my experience as an immigrant into the world of letters as a blessing. Being an outsider is the origin of my imagination; it gives me the constant consciousness that my perspective is only one of many and that there are myriad ways of being in the world. It grants me the gift of being attuned to the voices in the room, as well as all of those shut out of it.”
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On The Road With DFW
At the LA Times, Scott Esposito gives David Lipsky‘s Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace a mixed review.
A New Generation’s Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird is a timeless book, but until now it’s only been in the dated medium of print. However, Harper Lee announced that she is allowing her novel to become an ebook and digital audiobook. “I’m still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries. I am amazed and humbled that Mockingbird has survived this long. This is Mockingbird for a new generation.”
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Who Would Want to Buy a Printed Book?
The Boston Globe interviews Andrew Pettegree, author of The Book in the Renaissance, on how no one had any idea how to sell the first printed books. (via Book Bench)