With a deep look at the history of pronouns and a close reading of the lake has no saint, Dana Levin provides a thoughtful look at the everyday problems caused by “he,” “she,” and “they”.
Everyone has his problems
Write to Win
Want to win a house? A goat farm? A country bed-and-breakfast? Write an essay.
You Already Know This Because You Read
“[L]overs of more experimental books showed the ability to see things from different perspectives but it was comedy fans who scored the highest for relating to others.” A new study suggests that people who read books are nicer, reports The Independent. In our recent interview with author John Vaillant he wholly agreed. “Empathy is what gives you the access,” he told us. “I see the writer (fiction or nonfiction) as a kind of permeable membrane through which the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of others can pass and manifest.”
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Best Translated Book 2010
The Confessions of Noa Weber by Gail Hareven and translated from the Hebrew by Dalya Bilu has won the 2010 Best Translated Book Award. Previously: The shortlist.
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Story from Lucia Berlin
Recommended Reading: “The Musical Vanity Boxes” by Lucia Berlin at Electric Literature.
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“Trying to save Brooklyn”
At Salon, an interview with Year in Reading alum Gary Shteyngart, whose new memoir, Little Failure, came out last week. Shteyngart talks about the rise of a new “global fiction” and laments the fact that Russia “can’t seem to catch a break.”
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A Way Out of No Way
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor reviews Saidiya Hartman's Wayward Crossings, Beautiful Experiments, "a radical, genre-defying examination of the lives of 'ordinary' young Black women."
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Writing to Win
Adam Gopnik at the New Yorker comments on why we still write to win prizes (and hails Mario Vargas Llosa for having “a lively personal life that includes once punching out another future laureate…Gabriel García Márquez, reportedly over something to do with Mrs. Vargas Llosa. The Nobel thus not only crowns a career but provides the basis for a fine future Javier Bardem/Antonio Banderas movie.”)
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