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?
More like Readit, ha ha.
Since writing a plea for a YouTube lit category in Fiction Circus (which we discussed on our Tumblr), Miracle Jones has built a Reddit thread for literary videos.
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Better Call Randall
It can be hard to sell any home, but what if you’re trying to unload the site of a cult’s mass suicide, or a brutal celebrity stabbing? How do you determine a price people might pay for such “stigmatized properties?” It’s simple, really. You call Randall Bell.
Sunday Simic
The PEN Blog has a present for everybody: four poems by Charles Simic.
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Drinking JJS While Reading JJS
One of the best parts of last month’s Cullman Center discussion between John Jeremiah Sullivan and Wells Tower was watching JJS carry on the conversation while sipping from a highball glass of whiskey. The essayist’s Southern roots and Irish ancestry of course make him no stranger to potent potables, which is why Danny Nowell’s “John Jeremiah Sullivan” cocktail is so appropriate.
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End Notes from the Master
University students: I double dog dare you to use this David Foster Wallace end note generator to pad out your next term paper’s citations.