“Does ‘shithole’ have a hyphen in it?” Inside a copy editor’s brain.
House Style
We Need to Lie Down
“But migraines! Everyone relishes a migraine. They have a literal aura! Migraines foster the sort of pure narcissism that only intense, essentially benign pain can. We sufferers (that’s how it’s described, “migraine sufferer”) feel it is meet and right that the migraine should be dramatized in films like Pi or White Heat; this strengthens the perception that migraines are the hallmark of geniuses, or at least psychopaths. Joan Didion writes about them; of course she does.” Sadie Stein on the allure of the headache to end all headaches.
●
●
.literature
Amazon’s attempts to control literary domain names like “.book” and “.read” are not making the publishing community happy.
●
●
Obama on ‘Redeployment’
Recommended recommendations: President Obama recommends Year in Reading alum and National Book Award Winner Phil Klay‘s Redeployment.
●
●
The Old-New Journalism
“The repetitions, the ellipses, the onomatopoeia: All the markers of Wolfe’s stylistic DNA were adaptive mutations to a competitive climate, search-engine optimization for the typewriter age.” Here’s an interview with Tom Wolfe about his new novel, Back to Blood, which is receiving mixed reviews.
●
●
Bringing Salinger To the Big Screen
In Hollywood news, filmmaker Danny Strong – who wrote the screenplays for Lee Daniels’s The Butler and the third and fourth Hunger Games films – is reported to have a “strong interest” in adapting JD Salinger: A Life for the big screen.
Tuesday New Release Day: Rachman; Card; Winton; Conn; Dugan; Pritchett; Flynn; Yejide
The Imperfectionists author and Year in Reading alum Tom Rachman has a new novel on shelves this week, as does Orson Scott Card. Also out: Eyrie by Tim Winton; O, Africa! by Andrew Lewis Conn; So Much a Part of You by Polly Dugan; Stars Go Blue by Laura Pritchett; Third Rail by Rory Flynn; and Time of the Locust by Morowa Yejide.
Marie Mutsuki Mockett Interprets Bashō with Her Son
Marie Mutsuki Mockett reads Bashō's haikus with her 10-year-old son, who encounters the poet's work for the first time in the midst of home quarantine.
●
●
●
Revolutionary Word
Lewis Lapham, namesake and founder of Lapham’s Quarterly, has compiled a “revolutionary reading list.”