Elementary, My Dear Cosplayers
Emily Gould and Tao Lin Make a Salad
Emily Gould awkwardly prepares a salad with Tao Lin in the latest installment of Cooking the Books. (via The Awl)
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Looking for Some Literary Tumblrs?
For bookish Tumblrs, I suggest you start following Awesome People Reading, Writers No One Reads, and CoverSpy.
New Asymptote Featuring Péter Nádas and Anne Carson
Recommended Reading: The latest issue of Asymptote, which features work from Péter Nádas and an interview with Anne Carson. (Bonus: Carson has a poem up on The New Republic’s website.)
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The Secret Life of Ayn Rand
Kevin Courier is re-running interviews he did for the CBC in the 1980s on the Critics At Large site. Here’s his 1986 interview with Barbara Brenden, author of The Passion of Ayn Rand. Brenden’s book, Courier writes, “not only unveiled this polarizing figure” of Ayn Rand, but it “also illustrated the perils of blind faith and idolatry.” Given the Objectivist’s influence on a certain vice presidential candidate, this one’s worth a read.
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Peter Matthiessen, 1927-2014
Peter Matthiessen died today, according to a statement released by his publisher: “Peter Matthiessen, award-winning author of more than thirty books, world-renowned naturalist, explorer, Buddhist teacher, and political activist, died at 5:15 PM on Saturday April 5, 2014 after an illness of some months.” Matthiessen was the author most notably of two National Book Award-winning volumes, the novel Shadow Country and in non-fiction The Snow Leopard.
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DJ Eldest Immigrant Daughter
“The first boy to kiss your mother later raped women / when the war broke out. She remembers hearing this / from your uncle, then going to your bedroom and lying down on the floor. You were at school.” The poetry of Warsan Shire, Young Poet Laureate of London, does not mess around.
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The Writing Life Fantasy
Admit it, at one point or another you had a certain idea of what a writer’s life looks like. What comes to mind when someone says “I’m a writer?” You may picture a struggling hipster artist who lives in a smal apartment with books everywhere and does nothing but read and write. Rosalie Knecht explores the fascinating idea that we associate certain specific images with the writer lifestyle based off an Anthropologie catalogue. Not convinced? Read it for yourself.
Kafka’s Last Trial
At the New York Times, Elif Batuman has a long and absorbing article on the trial over Kafka’s manuscripts: “It’s impressive that [Kafka’s] sisters had between them four lawyers, although, to put things in perspective, Josef K. at one point meets a defendant who has six.”
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