To commemorate publication of the 65th anniversary edition of Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style, New Directions has asked ten contemporary writers to “create new exercises in homage to Queneau.” Over at The Rumpus, you can check out Jonathan Lethem’s “Cyberpunk” exercise, as well as one of Queneau’s twenty eight “never before translated” exercises making its English debut in the new edition. Bonus: read our own Mark O’Connell on the “radical claims about the relationship between form and content” in Queneau’s writing.
Much Ado about Queneau
Invitation to a Beheading
"The author, whose novels thrum with ironic recurrences, might have been perversely pleased with this: thirty-six years after his death and twenty-two years after the fall of the Soviet Union with all its khudsovets, Vladimir Nabokov is, once again, controversial."
“Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.”
Powell’s Books teamed up with Rogue Ales and Spirits to create White Whale Ale. “Infused with the seafaring spirit of Moby-Dick,” White Whale Ale is sure to please any beer drinker in your family this holiday season – even if they did skip the Cetology sections of Melville’s classic.
Muggles Appraising Wizards
Over the past few years, the Movoto Real Estate blog has become the internet’s number one destination for appraising the real estate in the Harry Potter universe. First they estimated the value of Hogwart’s Castle to be around $204 million, and now they’ve turned in an estimate of the Weasley family’s Burrow near Ottery St. Catchpole.
What We Owe
Recommended reading: In a piece for the LA Times David Ulin ponders the ethics of writing. "What do we owe our subjects? Do we have the right to tell their stories at all?"
A Story of Immigrants
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