John Jeremiah Sullivan’s “Diary” for the Financial Times features the Mars Curiosity, Quaker school songs, and all sorts of family bonding.
“I have always wondered.”
Looking Grim
You could spend a long car ride thinking about about all of the books that are currently outselling Rand Paul’s newest, Our Presidents & Their Prayers: Proclamations of Faith by America’s Leaders. According to data obtained from Nielsen BookScan, Paul’s book has sold less than 500 copies in two weeks. For reference, the end of Michelle Bachmann’s ill-fated 2012 presidential campaign was foreshadowed by her book, Core of Conviction, selling just a few thousand copies in the same time that it has taken Paul’s to sell hundreds.
●
●
Goodbye to Naples
Recommended Reading: Year in Reading alumna Elissa Schappell interviews Elena Ferrante about feminism, friendship, and her latest Neapolitan novel. Pair with Cora Currier’s essay on reading Italy through Ferrante’s books.
●
●
One comment:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Karen Russell, Short Story Sorcerer
A master of the short story, Karen Russell discusses supernatural metaphors for motherhood, lonely mutants, and the pleasures of world-building.
●
●
●
The Electric Typewriter Two-fer: Tom Wolfe and Susan Orlean
The folks at The Electric Typewriter have struck again, this time offering fifteen classic reads from Tom Wolfe and twenty more from Susan Orlean.
Not Exactly Rotten
According to a recent survey, Danes are the happiest people in the world. This came as a surprise, writes Mathilde Walter Clark, to most of her fellow Scandinavians, who know very well the unhappier elements of their daily lives. The problem, she suggests, is that words like “happiness,” “ambition” and “contentment” have subtly different meanings in different languages — in other words, happiness in Denmark isn’t the same thing as happiness in America. You could also read our own Emily St. John Mandel’s review of the Danish writer Jonas T. Bengtsson’s A Fairy Tale.
●
●
John Jeremiah Sullivan is the most overrated writer currently being overrated. I just got done reading “Diary” and all I can say is, That’s it? That’s what passes for the best American letters has to offer, according to most of the blogosphere and a good portion of the Quality Lit world. I felt the same way about 80% of Pulphead. So now I think I’ve read enough of John Jeremiah Sullivan to have an educated opinion. I wouldn’t say his writing is bad, it’s not, it’s good, it’s fine, I guess. More laconic Midwestern earnestness. Yawn.