Matthew Salesses, whose forthcoming novel-in-stories I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying (excerpt here) will publish in February, has started writing a book (on Tumblr) “(not) about adoption.” As Salesses notes in the blog’s first post, his new project “is not to be a memoir, or an op-ed, or a travel narrative, or an answer to anyone …This is to be the story of finding out.”
A Book, Not a Blog. About (but not) Adoption.
A Brief History of Gay Liberation
“If the taglines used to market lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans to the country’s mainstream—‘Love Wins,’ ‘It Gets Better,’ and ‘You Can Play’—have led to unprecedented levels of inclusion and visibility, it is precisely by shoving sex aside and presenting gay people and straight people as essentially the same at heart. In the process, as the outsider status attached to being gay disappears in more and more contexts, some of gay culture’s radical roots risk being expunged from memory.” On Jim Downs’s Stand by Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation.
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The Boy Who Mattered
Not sure why Harry Potter shares the fruits of his heroism? Upset that Hermione doesn’t end up with tons of cash? Well, then you should sit down with Ayn Rand’s version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, helpfully published at The Toast by Mallory Ortberg.
Dubliners, 100 Years Later
At Flavorwire Jonathan Sturgeon considers what we've learned from Dubliners in the hundred years since it was first published and argues that "when it comes to realism, Dubliners, more than even Chekhov’s short fiction, is the model we routinely fail to live up to." Sturgeon's reflections on Joyce's free indirect discourse pair well with Jonathan Russell Clark's Millions essay on close writing, and his essay isn't completely without hope: he concludes with a few books that, "on the surface, look nothing like Dubliners, but, in spirit... show that Joyce’s book still lives 100 years on."
The Hype Cycle
Elif Batuman entertainingly muses on "hype" and resolves to "write five 5-star Amazon reviews this month of books I love by living authors."
The Illest Brother
"Wherever you are...realize that your essence is divine, son / and let it shine, son." Peace to Guru Keith Elam, 1966 - 2010.
Ada Lovelace Day
This Tuesday marked the celebration of Ada Lovelace Day, commemorating the world’s first computer programmer (who also happened to be Lord Byron’s daughter). Sydney Padua has published a graphic novel about Lovelace and Charles Babbage, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer. Check out scenes from the story and read more about Lovelace at Brain Pickings.