HTMLGiant is running a cool series of interviews with readers who recently finished long or difficult books. Check out their takes on Lee Child’s Echo Burning, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, and William Gaddis’s The Recognitions over here, here, and here, respectively. Also, while on the topic of difficult books, check out Emily Colette Wilkinson and Garth Risk Hallberg’s round-up of their ten top picks.
Interviews with Ambitious Readers
How the Sausage Gets Made
“Being a judge for the Man Booker prize has at times felt like being part of a team of archaeologists excavating some vast buried city. Once the dust has settled – after nine months of reading – you stand back to survey your labours and realise all that’s left is a small pile of gleaming fragments. I hadn’t expected the process to be quite so emotionally exhausting. Nor had I thought it would be quite so exhilarating.” In case you’re curious, a Man Booker Prize arbiter offers up his reflections on the judging process. See also: the shortlist itself, which has surprised many readers!
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Following Franklin
“Who am I in the face of the Universe if not just a bro who wants to get stuff done?” Tim Goessling tried living a day according to Benjamin Franklin’s schedule listed in The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. What was his biggest takeaway? We should self-evaluate and set goals more.
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Just In Time For Valentine’s Weekend
Katia Grubisic reviews The Poetry of Sex, which is Penguin’s new “carnal compilation” covering everything “from love-making to hay-rolling to cuckolding.”
Grief and Memory
Humans have been covering paintings, windows, and mirrors after the passing of loved ones for generations. Why do we feel the need to close off our connection to the outside world when we are grieving? Colin Dickey writes about the social, literary, and religious connotations of grief and memory at Hazlitt. At The Millions, Lidia Yuknavitch writes about channeling her grief into art.
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“Never will I tire of that silvery fluidity”
“I hope this prize will incite thousands of British women to take close-up photos of their lovers’ bodies in all states of array and disarray.” Literary Review calls out the year’s most abominable sex scene.
Book Sightings
With the advent of e-readers, books on the subway are getting harder and harder to spot. It takes dedication to get a sense of what people are reading these days. At The Awl, Ben Dolnick sets out to catalogue a week’s worth of sightings, which included a man reading Cloud Atlas and The Stranger and a teenage girl reading Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. You could also read our own Nick Moran on the question of whether e-readers are really green.