The best longread you’re likely to find this afternoon: Martin Amis talks to David Wallace-Wells about his latest novel, Lionel Asbo: State of England, America’s decline, politics, porn, post-modernism and more. Amis even dodges another attempt to bring up that book he wrote about videogames that nobody will let him live down.
“You can’t be up the reader’s ass, as many a writer I think is—cute as hell, ingratiating as hell.”
Shelf Help
If you’re struggling with your writing, turn to biographies of famous authors. This is Tom Perrotta’s cure for writer’s block. “It’s inspiring to read about a flawed human being who struggled with his or her demons and afflictions, experienced paralyzing episodes of failure or self-doubt, but somehow managed to do the work anyway, and produce something that enriched the world. That’s my version of self-help,” he said in a New York Times “By the Book” interview.
E-Books Upend Publishing Class
A Columbia University course that has taught generations of bright-eyed would-be Maxwell Perkins the ins and outs of the New York publishing biz has had to retool its curriculum to account for the e-book phenomenon, the New York Times reports.
More Keller
Here are a couple more pieces on Bill Keller’s departure as executive editor of The New York Times. An interview with Esquire conducted not long before his announcement: “Newspaper publishers have done more to kill newspapers than any innovative form of media.” And New York describes how Keller’s recent cranky columns about new vs. old media ticked off the newsroom.
Recommended Reading: New Ashbery
Recommended Reading: The American Reader has some new John Ashbery poems. We love “Listening Tour.”
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The Translator’s Tale
We don’t often stop to think about the art of literary translation, but translator Margaret Jull Costa examines the field in her Times Literary Supplement essay on The Cahiers Series. “What these fascinating Cahiers offer is an insight into what literary translators actually do, as well as fuel for the endless debate about what we mean when we talk about ‘faithful’ translation.”
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