Hack author Dmitry Samarov is this week’s guest blogger at Writers No One Reads (which we’ve mentioned before). In his first post, Samarov takes a look at the work of Willard Motley, who grew up in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood in the early 1900s, and is most well-known for his 1947 bestseller, Knock On Any Door.
Dmitry Samarov on Writers No One Reads
You Too Could Be a Turnip
Those of you with more than a passing familiarity with the Brothers Grimm will know that classic fairy tales were often dark and macabre. They’re considerably more frightening than the sanitized versions we read to our children today. At Salon, Maria Tatar talks to Laura Miller about her translation of The Turnip Princess, a new collection of previously undiscovered fairy tales. Sample quote: “There isn’t that strict division of gendered labor that you find in the Grimms.” You could also read Kirsty Logan on the trouble with fairy tales.
●
●
Songs of Zora
Recommended Listening: Florida Memory’s great collection of Zora Neale Hurston singing.
●
●
Remnick Interviewed
Robert Birnbaum has a terrific, funny, wide-ranging interview with David Remnick, a must read for all the New Yorker obsessives out there. (via Kottke)
●
●
The Real Cuba
Year in Reading alumna Patricia Engel writes about the “real” Cuba she encountered in her research trips. Pair with Bill Morris’s Millions essay on Havana’s love for cars.
The Perils of Contact
The Perils of ‘Contact Me’: in an essay in the New York Times, Ben Yagoda wonders whether authors have made themselves too accessible to readers.