Take the opportunities provided by this video and this interview to get to know Roger Hodge, the new editor of The Oxford American.
The OA’s New EIC
The World’s Most Powerful Editor
“I think you are abusing your power, and I find it hard to believe that you have thought it through thoroughly.” Norway’s largest newspaper, Aftenposten, has published a front-page letter to Mark Zuckerberg after Facebook censored an iconic image from the Vietnam war. The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a naked nine-year-old Kim Phúc running away from a napalm attack was deleted from a post about seven images “that changed the history of warfare.”
Tatjana Soli, author of The Lotus Eaters, wrote for us about the legacy of that infamous photo a few years back.
The Voice Is Now The Word
Cee Lo Green will be dropping a memoir in 2013, and his press release reads like something that’s gone through four different spins in Google translator: “Talk about art imitating life? Enter into the super-natural, the surreal and the extra-ordinary that is [Cee Lo Green.] Do you think this is by chance? CRAZY? FORGET YOU? After reading this book, there will be no doubt that I am meant to be. CEELO GREEN A.K.A ‘everybody’s brother’ will make you a believer, not only in me, but also…yourself.”
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Ireland’s Poet President
Did you know the recently elected president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, is actually a noted poet? Though the Guardian’s own Carol Rumens would disagree.
Tayari Jones on Toni Morrison and Homer
Tayari Jones lists the most influential books of her life, ranging from Jesmyn Ward and Homer to Ann Petry and David Chariandy.
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Boss Fight Books
Boss Fight Books is a new series in the mold of the classic 33 1/3 model. In lieu of covering music albums, however, each Boss Fight book “will take a critical, creative, historical, and personal look at a single classic video game.” The first titles in the series will investigate Earthbound and Galaga, and they should be out by next December and January, respectively.
Matthiessen’s Beginnings
In memory of Peter Matthiessen, The Missouri Review has unlocked an interview with him from 1989. Matthiessen detailed the beginning of his writing career. “I started my first novel and sent off about four chapters and waited by the post office for praise to roll in, calls from Hollywood, everything. Finally my agent sent me a letter that said ‘Dear Peter, James Fenimore Cooper wrote this a hundred and fifty years ago, only he wrote it better. Yours, Bernice.’ I probably needed that; it was very healthy.” For more Matthiessen, you can read one of his best travel essays or his new novel, In Paradise.
Literary Self-Help
Paris Review editor Lorin Stein recommends a couple of self-help books to one reader in this week’s mail blog. “Let your self-help freak flag fly!” he writes. Such might put you in esteemed company. As Maria Bustillos pointed out in her poignant investigation for The Awl, David Foster Wallace treasured many self help books.