In his review of a collection of rejected New Yorker covers titled Blown Covers: New Yorker Covers You Were Never Meant To See, Jeet Heer details the magazine’s history of straddling the divide between bourgeoisie complacency and bohemian angst.
The Limits of Good Taste
Goodreads Recommendations
Goodreads has unveiled its new book recommendation feature. Unlike Amazon's feature, Goodreads' will draw data from every book you've read and logged, not just those you've purchased online.
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Jon-Jon Goulian gets another profile
For The Rumpus, Sari Botton interviews Jon-Jon Goulian to supplement his recent profile in The New York Times.
Not Just Any Body
"Why should Serena not respond to racism? In whose world should it be answered with good manners? The notable difference between black excellence and white excellence is white excellence is achieved without having to battle racism. Imagine." Claudia Rankine writes for The New York Times Magazine about tennis player Serena Williams, racism in sports, and white privilege. Pair with our own Michael Bourne’s list of books that “shed light on the history and evolution of racism in America.”
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J. K. Rowling Updates
J. K. Rowling has confirmed that her new film, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, will be a trilogy. She’s also writing about Native American wizards on Pottermore, which, as our own Elizabeth Minkel has pointed out, has been controversial. It’s a good time to revisit our piece on J.K. Rowling’s second thoughts.
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On Zadie Smith and Barack Obama
Electric Literature's blog The Outlet begins a series of essays with the question: "Is Zadie Smith the Barack Obama of literature?"
Weary Old Men
In an excerpt of Out of Time, a new book on “the pleasures and perils of ageing,” author Lynne Segal makes a case that many iconic male writers -- among them Philip Roth, John Updike and Martin Amis -- display in their works a belief that the slow loss of virility is one of the most tragic effects of growing older for men. Citing passages from Toward the End of Time and Portnoy’s Complaint, she finds evidence that these writers' depictions of masculinity reveal “obdurate social hierarchies of gender and ageing." (Related: Keith Meatto on advice you can glean from Philip Roth’s work.)