Move over Naga Viper. There’s a new hottest pepper in town, and it’s called the Carolina Reaper.
Particularly Piquant Peppers
Judging an Author by the Cover
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Comfort Food: Rock Memoir Edition
Alex Stone reviews Guns N’ Roses founding member Duff McKagan’s memoir, It’s So Easy. It’s a book, Stone writes, that’s “intoxicating — in a pancreas-wrenching sort of way.” Bonus: McKagan’s Year in Reading for our site back in 2011.
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Rereading Dostoevsky
David Denby wonders: After nearly 150 years have passed since its initial publication and countless imitators have blunted its artistic radicalism does Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground still pack a punch? For more contemporary readings of Dostoevsky, see Rob Goodman’s recent article on forensics, The Brothers Karamazov and the death of the courtroom drama.
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Death and Dishonor
At Granta’s website, the novelist David McConnell explains his fascination with the “honor killing,” a hate crime targeted at gay men that inspired his latest book.
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Anonymous Authors
Recommended Reading: Art Winslow asks, “did Thomas Pynchon publish a novel under the pseudonym Adrian Jones Pearson?”
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Tweet Like a Fiend
“Keep a close eye on your Twitter account. Important things may be said there that you will be expected to weigh in on, and if you don’t, everyone will wonder if you fell asleep in the bathroom stall of the bar last night and are still there, head sunken low next to the toilet, one lost contact lens embedded somewhere in the floor grime. Make sure they know you’re not; that was the you of 100 million years ago.” Jen Doll on writing and not-writing.