1963 Was a Nice Year for Criticism
Becoming No One
"It helps to be nobody if you want to be somebody." Over at The Daily Beast, Ted Gioia takes a look at what he calls the new cult of the anonymous artist. From the famously infamous graffiti artist Banksy to the enigmatic Italian novelist Elena Ferrante, there is certainly no denying that, whatever the reason, anonymity is "in." Here's an older Millions essay that takes a look at Banksy, obsession, and the sea.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Didion, Freud, Obreht
This week's big book release is Joan Didion's memoir Blue Nights. Also out is Esther Freud's Lucky Break and new in paperback, Téa Obreht's The Tiger's Wife (our review).
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The links
The Telegraph links all their reviews of Booker longlist titles from one page. If you want to get a look at these literary hotshots, there's a photo gallery, too.Ed has read Chuck Klosterman, and he's not very happy about it.The First Post, a new British online magazine leads with John Irving's book reviewer-bashing.
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“This music had some kind of hard edge to it”
Spin has ten selected excerpts from David Foster Wallace and Mark Costello’s re-released exploration of hip-hop, Signifying Rappers. (As always, this slideshow warrants the use of ClusterFake’s handy “De-Slide-Ifier.”)
Third Annual Asian American Literary Festival
The Asian American Writers' Workshop is holding the third annual Page Turner: Asian American Literary Festival tomorrow, October 29th in Brooklyn. There you'll find: Junot Díaz, Amitava Kumar, Min Jin Lee, Jayne Anne Phillips, Granta editor John Freeman, two stand-up comedians, five NBA finalists, seven Guggenheim Fellows, and a Korean taco truck.
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Amazon’s Top 100 of the Year
Amazon is tweeting its top 100 books of the year today on its Twitter account. (Thanks, Darryl)
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