Did you dig “After Ellen,” Justin Taylor’s short story in The New Yorker? How about his interview for the Page-Turner blog? Yea? Well here’s even more: Joshua Cohen talks with The Gospel of Anarchy author for Jewish Book Council.
Justin Taylor Threepeat
Kindle Price Drop
Amazon's response to the iPad? The pricetag for a Kindle has just dropped to $189.
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A Murmuration of Starlings
Also the name of a beautiful book of poetry by Jake Adam York, a group of starlings is known as a "murmuration." One could make the case that the birds are America's most literary. Each of the hundreds of millions of European starlings currently inhabiting North America is a descendant of the approximately 100 birds released in New York City's Central Park in the early 1890s. They were released by a society intent on populating America with each of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's plays.
The Sorrows of Lot
At The Rumpus, Kate Angus argues that salt, far from being simply a pillar of the spice trade, is in fact “the physical manifestation of the basic triad of our lives: love, work, and grief.”
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Jean-Patrick Manchette Movie Adaptation on the Way
Idris Elba, Sean Penn and Javier Bardem have signed on to star in a film adaptation of Jean-Patrick Manchette’s novel, The Prone Gunman. According to Christian Blauvelt of Hollywood.com, “Elba will be playing a cloak-and-dagger agent named Dupont who tangles with Sean Penn, who also plays an agent for a clandestine operations outfit who is betrayed by his organization, forcing him on the run across Europe.”
William Kelley, a Lost Literary Giant
"I didn’t know who William Kelley was when I found that book but, like millions of Americans, I knew a term he is credited with first committing to print. 'If You’re Woke, You Dig It' read the headline of a 1962 Op-Ed that Kelley published in the New York Times, in which he pointed out that much of what passed for “beatnik” slang (“dig,” “chick,” “cool”) originated with African-Americans." Are you familiar with William Kelley? Let Kathryn Schulz be your guide on this historical literary adventure as she discovers an immensely influential writer whom most of us have never heard mentioned.
The Weight of Each Other’s History
Recommended Reading: On Audre Lorde’s archive in Berlin.