In a video introduced by Paul Yoon, James Salter (who was recently interviewed by our own Sonya Chung) speaks about his time in France and his experience writing A Sport and a Pastime.
“You could say that the book [A Sport and a Pastime] is a long poem to provincial France.”
“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?”
Have you ever wanted to take a road trip like Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise? You can now. Gregor Weichbrodt used Google Maps to write directions for On The Road's famous 7,527-mile drive. Choose your companions wisely, so you don't get stuck with dysentery in Mexico.
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The Future Is Near
Wallace Shawn has written a new play, and it's unsettling to watch. In it, a group of wealthy, middle-aged party hosts reveal their roles in a dystopian future, where political murders, random beatings and censorship are all commonplace. In an essay for The New York Review of Books, Francine Prose reviews the play in the context of Shawn's other works.
Men of the Stacks
A group of male librarians is "attempting to overthrow the cliché of the bespectacled, permanently shushing female library worker" with the publication of a Calendar Girls-style calendar, Men of the Stacks.
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From Page to Screen
Some of the most revered literary novels that have appeared in recent years will be adapted for television. Jonathon Sturgeon writes for Flavorwire, “What do we call this new relationship between prestige and streaming TV and the literary novel? The two now shape each other in peculiar, formal ways—like lovers who share an apartment, they’ve started speaking and looking alike.” Pair with this Millions piece on literary magazines in film and TV.
Just Like Read It
Recommended (Like) Reading: A.E. Stallings like totally demolished the Sestina form.
Walk, Don’t Run
Haruki Murakami retired his running shoes to walk to Kobe and rediscover his hometown. "Strictly speaking, it’s not my home town any more. I feel a deep sense of loss at this fact, as if the axis of my memories is faintly, but audibly, creaking within me. It’s a physical sensation," he writes in an essay for Granta.
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That Old Thing?
If you went to Dublin at one point and paid a visit to The Book of Kells -- and if you didn’t, what gives? -- you’ll appreciate this take on the artifact in The Irish Times.
“Books are an existential crisis”
Kyle Winkler, in an editorial for Vouched Books (which I've mentioned previously), writes that "books are an existential crisis" because we can't possibly read them all.