Can’t we just go with “grey” already?
Believers
Recommended Reading: David Means on his religious beliefs and his Hystopia, one of the most anticipated books of the year.
The Stories We Tell
Of more than 23,000 front-page articles that appeared in The New York Times between 1939 and 1945, only 26 were about the Holocaust. Watch a powerful 18-minute mini-documentary about "how and why the genocide of Jews was neglected and euphemised by the Times, and by extension, the American people." Pair with our piece about the German traditions of the Denkmahl and Mahnmahl, two different kinds of memorials with subtle, yet important distinctions.
Verse Play
“A must-read for: anyone who has grappled with mood disorders/And: anyone interested in the nature of creativity/And: anyone interested in insightful stories told with honesty, pathos, and wit.” On Ellen Forney’s Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michaelangelo & Me.
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A.S. Byatt on Feministing
Chloe Angyal briefly interviews A.S. Byatt at Feministing. Byatt will be reading in New York City this Thursday.
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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.
Did You Hear?
Gossip is often seen as inherently frivolous and trashy, which is why it’s odd that a poet would use it as the subject of his or her work. On The Poetry Foundation’s blog, Austin Allen writes about George Green’s collection Lord Byron’s Foot, in which, as Allen puts it, “the dish spares no one.” (h/t Arts and Letters Daily)
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Puffed Up
Don't blame Amazon or Goodreads for authors writing rave reviews of their own work. Writers have been self-promoting since the 1700s, when it was called "puffery." As Nicholas Mason writes for Symposium Magazine, "Nearly every British writer of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries either participated in or benefitted from ginned-up book reviews." The list of puffed up authors includes Mary Wollstonecraft, Walter Scott, and Mary Shelley.
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