Over at Threepenny Review, Jess Row expounds on “blandness” in the work of Haruki Murakami, and particularly in his 2.8 lb. tome 1Q84—a book tabbed by Charles Baxter in last year’s Year in Reading as the best he’d read all year. Row contemplates the way Murakami’s characters and sentences “almost never lose this placid, observant neutrality,” or “continuous monotone.”
Haruki Murakami: Master of Blandness
A Community Library of Rare Black Books, Courtesy of Solange
Solange opens the Saint Heron Community Library, a media center dedicated to out-of-print and rare books by Black and Brown voices in poetry, visual art, critical thought, and design.
●
●
●
Anecdotes On-Screen
Attention all readers who want to talk pretty one day: a story by David Sedaris has just been made into a film.
●
●
A Visual Mind
To get a full sense of the legacy of William Blake, you need to see his paintings alongside his famous poems. The Wordsworth contemporary did much of his best work — including the covers of his own collections — with a brush. At the New York Review of Books blog, Jenny Uglow pays a visit to a new exhibition at Oxford.
Hot Amish Romance
Is it hot in here, or is that my Amish friendship bread? New York calls our attention to a new genre: the bonnet-ripper.
●
●
Min Jin Lee Finds Her Voice
Min Jin Lee recounts how she found her voice, going from a young student struggling with the English language to a published author promoting her own work.
●
●
●
The Primetime Magicians
Jonathan Franzen and Chad Harbach aren’t the only two authors adapting their works for television. Lev Grossman is working on an hour-long Fox series based on his novel The Magicians.
●
●