1963 Was a Nice Year for Criticism
Choose Life
“The purpose of being a serious writer is not to express oneself, and it is not to make something beautiful, though one might do those things anyway. Those things are beside the point. The purpose of being a serious writer is to keep people from despair. If you keep that in mind always, the wish to make something beautiful or smart looks slight and vain in comparison. If people read your work and, as a result, choose life, then you are doing your job.” Year in Reading alumna Sarah Manguso on envy and the purpose of writing. Pair with Jaime Green’s Millions review of Manguso’s Ongoingness.
Putting the Fiction in Nonfiction
While researching In Cold Blood, Truman Capote took pains to get the story right, so much so that the final product was, he claimed, “immacutely factual.” The tale of his labors is so well-known that Bennett Miller used it as the basis of his movie Capote. So when allegations surface that the author made deliberate errors, the story gets a little bit… awkward.
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The Realities of a Tiny House
“AYN: This house was built in 1835 but, as you can see, the antiquated design elements suggest the work of a second-rate architect in love with the past who never had an original thought in his wasted life.” Go check out the newest episode of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist House Hunters at McSweeney’s.
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New Dr. Seuss Book to Be Published in July
Random House announced today that a never-before-published Dr. Seuss book titled What Pet Should I Get? will appear on bookshelves this July. The book, a spinoff of Seuss’s One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, centers on two young children attempting to choose a pet. Seuss’s widow, Audrey Geisel, discovered the manuscript in 2013.
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Writing While Pretty
“I very quickly realized that if you want to seem as a serious writer, you can’t possibly look like a person who looks in the mirror.” Author, Boots spokesperson, Year-in-Reading alum, and all-around badass Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks to The New York Times about beauty, feminism, and writing.
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