This past week saw the release of the final volume in Holy Soul Jelly Roll: Poems & Songs 1949-1993, a collection of recordings—some of which never before released—by Allen Ginsberg. This volume contains the “stunning 1956 Berkeley Town Hall reading of Ginsberg’s seminal poem ‘Howl.’” The volumes are for sale on iTunes, but you can also listen to an “8 song sampler” over on OpenCulture for free.
Audio Ginsberg
The Legacy of Disaster
“Historians, I believe, are dedicated to fighting against the tide of our social amnesia. The reason they continue to write books about the Holocaust, or Appomatox, or the earthquake in Haiti, is to try to help us remember the suffering and the extent of the damage. Some try to humanize, and others turn to abstraction.” Stewart L. Sinclair writes on burying the remnants of disaster, over at Guernica. Pair with his Millions essay on technology and Apple’s operating systems.
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Impolitic
Is all literature political? Is this political? Are you political?
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The Cartoon Curator
Didn't find the latest New Yorker cartoon funny? Take it up with The New Yorker's cartoon editor, Bob Mankoff, who discusses the magazine's "idea drawings" and humor in his TED talk, Anatomy of a New Yorker Cartoon. Bonus: check out Mankoff's favorite New Yorker cartoons.
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Bring Me That Book, STAT
See you later, creepy Amazon drones -- delivery dudes on mopeds are the future! There is a new service called NearSt. which is offering book delivery within the hour. So far the service is only available in London, but with over forty London bookshops already utilizing the service, it seems poised to take over at least a small corner of the market.
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Weather Advisory
“These are not stories about the weather, these are stories about life and death.” Over at Ploughshares, E.V. De Cleyre considers the weather in contemporary literature.
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Phil Klay on “War Literature”
"I’ve been asked what differentiates war literature as a category, and I don’t think there is anything." The Daily Beast interviews Phil Klay about the National Book Award, Redeployment, and the concept of war literature.
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Curiosities: Bootleg Translations
Rumors of John Cheever's death? Greatly exaggerated.HarperCollins sets out to test the proposition that there really is no such thing as bad publicity.BHL rips Valkyrie and Tom Cruise.Maud lauds Marlon James, author of The Book of Night Women.The New York Public Library names Millions guest contributor Sana Krasikov a finalist for its Young Lions award. Congratulations, Sana!More Intelligent Life interviews Jon Fasman, another Young Lion in waiting and author of The Unpossessed CityAlso at MiL: Lorin Stein wants a stimulus plan for book critics. (Hear! Hear!)Millions-fave Paul Theroux interviewed by the Boston Globe: "People say to me: How can I become a writer? I always say: one, leave home; two, tell the truth."xkcd takes on the Kindle."Jack Kerouac's 'lost' novel The Sea is My Brother, which he wrote during his years as a merchant seaman, is to be published in its entirety for the first time."Soon there will be a literary prize for everyone: "The St. Francis College Literary Prize is designed for a fourth published book of fiction." ($50,000!)The strangest title shortlistVia Gwenda, the Wikipedia find of the week: "A book curse was the most widely-employed and effective method of discouraging the thievery of manuscripts during the medieval period."The best reasoning yet for why the Kindle/"Text-to-Speech" uproar is dumb. Meanwhile, Amazon backs down."I", "we", "two" and "three" the oldest English words.A resourceful group of Chinese enthusiasts creates bootleg translations of every issue of The Economist.Shark-jumping: "HarperCollins Pays Big Advance For A Book Of... Tweets"Stuff White Readers Should Like
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“It is true that if there exists a ‘writer’s writer,’ [George] Saunders is the guy”
Joel Lovell profiles George Saunders for The New York Times, and he gives a killer endorsement for Saunders's latest book, Tenth of December. The author's collection from thirteen years ago, Pastoralia, was picked on our site as being among the "Best of the Millennium."
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