Our own Lydia Kiesling discusses James Wood’s literary “lodestars,” and also looks at “what is fascinating, if not exactly fun” about The Fun Stuff, the critic’s latest essay collection.
Who Reviews the Reviewers?
Tale of a Stalker, Ctd.
Not long after James Lasdun released his new book, Give Me Everything You Have, Jessica Freeman-Slade reviewed it for The Millions. Now, in the latest issue of the LRB, Nick Richardson offers his own take. (You could also check out our own Mark O’Connell's interview with Lasdun.)
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3 Quarks Daily Arts and Literature Prize
Attention! 3 Quarks Daily has announced its 4th annual prize for arts and literature online writing, to be judged by novelist Mohsin Hamid. Articles from The Millions writers have won before (a piece from Lydia Kiesling in 2010 and another from Edan Lepucki in 2011) and we'd love to keep that tradition going. Nominations can be posted in the comments of the announcement, so please recommend any Millions writing you have enjoyed since March of last year. And to all of our guest contributors out there, be sure to nominate your Millions pieces!
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“Which I respect more than bourgeois liberalism”
Much fuss was made about Barack Obama’s ex-girlfriends this week, as an excerpt from David Maraniss’ forthcoming Barack Obama: The Story was published in Vanity Fair. Of course, we sophisticated book readers care less about the man’s old flames than we do his literary pursuits, right? That’s why Mr. President’s analysis of T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Wasteland” is so interesting.
The Art of Blurbing
At the Guardian Book Blog, Anthony Horowitz wonders "who's helping who in the cover blurb game." We of course recommend pairing his article with Alan Levinovitz's Brief History of Blurbs from last year.
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Siiiick
Gnarly, dude: Leanne Shapton’s reading her new book at a surf shop.
Urban Homesteaders
Better late than never, here are eight great new books for Urban Homesteaders.
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Something Beautiful
"If I could paint or compose music, I would want to finally arrive at what I felt was beauty for me and for others. I would trust that if I could make something that was beautiful, it would also be true, the way Charlie Parker is true or a Shostakovich cello concerto is true, and I feel the same way about writing. I try to make something beautiful out of language." Fogged Clarity interviews Stuart Dybek about the writing process and Ecstatic Cahoots, which we mentioned in our 2014 Book Preview.