Next May, HarperCollins will publish a never before seen J. R. R. Tolkein poem, entitled The Fall of Arthur and based on Arthurian legend, not Middle-earth.
The Fellowship of the Round Table
Folk Lore
If his new novel Against the Country is any indication, Ben Metcalf gets his best inspiration from the worst of rural America. In the book, which features a panoply of awful crimes and obscenities, Metcalf rides roughshod over the notion of the rural idyll. In Bookforum, onetime Millions staffer Emily Colette Wilkinson reviews the novel, calling it “a gut-busting knee slapper” in spite of its glut of macabre scenes.
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Serializing in the Digital Age II
City of Quartz author Mike Davis is writing a biography of the Los Angeles Times' bygone publisher Harrison Gray Otis. Appropriately, the installments will be serialized by the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Who owns a story?
"Who owns the story, the person who lives it or the person who writes it?" Both? Roxana Robinson writes for The New York Times' Opinionator blog about "The Right to Write."
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Simms Taback Dies at 79
Simms Taback, the children's author and illustrator known for his version of There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, has died at age 79.
Motel Hell
The average book tour is filled with indignities, but none may be worse than getting kicked out of a cheap motel, which is exactly what happened to our own Bill Morris on the tour for his latest novel. At The Daily Beast, he recounts the unfortunate events that led to him getting booted from a Motel 6. You could also read his essay on listening to the audiobook of his own novel while on tour.
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Dark and Tough
Last year, Laura van den Berg came out with a new book, The Isle of Youth, which Nathan Huffstutter reviewed for The Millions. On the Guernica blog, Dwyer Murphy interviews van den Berg, who talks about jacket photos, her first collection and whether a writer from Florida is part of the Southern tradition. (You could also read van den Berg’s Year in Reading entry.)
Poetry from the Road
Recommended Reading: Amy Woolard's poem "Things Go South" at TriQuarterly. "Here, the apple don’t fall/From the tree. Here, whatever you/Find lying on the ground is yours./A scratch-off waiting to strike."
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