Tim Parks takes a look at recent literary history and sincerely asks, does money make us write better? Supplementary reading: Nick Ripatrazone’s look into the economy of literary magazines.
Words for Cash
Blursing In Disguise
"A dictionary is just a book, a product, no different from Fifty Shades of Grey and only slightly better written." A few rules for making up words.
On The Making of The Blues Brothers
"'We had a budget in the movie for cocaine for night shoots,' [Dan] Aykroyd says."
Beginning of the End
“As a speaker of a small language, it can be alarming to hear the rapidly increasing influx of new words from a dominant force. Back in 2000, linguistics researcher Sylfest Lomheim caused upheaval by claiming the Norwegian language wouldn’t survive the next century. Is this the beginning of the end?” On the Anglicization of Norwegian.
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The Internet v. Writing
It's hard to write when the internet beckons. So has said Dani Shapiro and our own Emily St. John Mandel. Colson Whitehead doesn't necessarily agree, however. Ditto for our own Kevin Hartnett. Now the folks at Electric Literature have thrown in their two cents.
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“The real subject of his book is scale”
Generally speaking, it’s a good idea to take Kathryn Schulz’s book recommendations. However when she refers to something – in this case J.M. Ledgard’s Submergence – as “the best novel I’ve read so far this year,” you really ought to listen up. By the time she invokes Philip Gourevitch, Anne Carson, W. G. Sebald, and John Le Carré in her review of that book, you ought to be reaching for your wallet.
On Goodreads, On Good Criticism
"Goodreads lets me capture and disperse impressions that occur as I read. I tend to track the sounds I make when reading, the chortles, gasps, growls, and LOLs. I try to figure out why I might not have liked aspects of a book, looking under the hood in a workshoppy way..." Lee Klein offers a defense of Goodreads and good criticism over at Full Stop.
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