Ian Crouch on the place of real estate in the novel, and its tenedency to “reinforce our modern sense that the appearance of our houses, and the taste and class that they represent, are among the defining elements of modern selfhood.”
Words on the street.
Soder v. Soda
The popularity of Joshua Katz’s American dialect maps inspired The Atlantic to create their own dialect video. In it, Atlantic staff members call people from across the country, recording them so listeners can hear their accents, and ask them to answer questions from a 2003 Harvard survey.
“How enterprising of you”
A couple weeks ago, I recommended that budding Randians read this self-edifying excerpt, taken from Ayn Rand’s version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Now, Rand has penned her own version of You’ve Got Mail, again kindly published by Mallory Ortberg.
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Try, Try Again
Millions contributor Jessica Francis Kane gives an account of the first time she had a story accepted into a literary magazine. Kane’s short story collection, This Close, hit shelves last March.
Papercuts Can Be Fun Too
Our friends at Electric Literature are Kickstarting Papercuts, “a party game for the rude and well-read.” We would’ve pledged anyway, but this pitch sealed the deal: “It’s what Kurt Vonnegut, James Baldwin, and Virginia Woolf would play if they were alive, locked in a room together, and forced to play a card game.” This Cards Against Humanity for the literary set will be delivered in time for Christmas, so keep it in mind for your erudite stocking stuffer needs.
The Ghost of Playboy’s Literary Past
“We editors told ourselves the naked women were merely carnival barkers: they got an audience into the tent, but we kept them with the content.” In the Guardian, Playboy‘s former fiction editor Amy Grace Loyd reveals what it was like to work at the magazine and how she commissioned work from writers like Donna Tartt, Margaret Atwood, and Junot Díaz. Read our review of Loyd’s debut novel, The Affairs of Others.