Recommended Viewing: The trailer for Joel and Ethan Coen’s forthcoming film, Inside Llewyn Davis.
New Coen Brothers Trailer
The Economy of Goodwill
Recommended Reading: Against crowdfunding websites that marketize goodwill.
The Vulgar and Beautiful
At Big Other, Greg Gerke reads William H. Gass’s The Tunnel and looks at language, the controversy over the book, and how the vulgar and the beautiful relate.
A Spider of a Writer
Year in Reading alumna Parul Sehgal’s column for The New York Times debuted last week with her reflections on the great Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal. As she puts it, “He is a spider of a writer: subtle and sly, patient, with invisible designs. He never proclaims — he never needs to. He envelops.” Pair with John Yargo’s Millions essay on Hrabal’s fiction.
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The Originals Series
Farrar, Straus & Giroux will team up with GQ for something called “The Originals Series.” The series, as stated in a blog post from FSG’s digital marketing manager, will consist of “authors and musicians in conversation, hosted by David Rees (Get Your War On, Artisanal Pencil Sharpening, Kale City), in an intimate West Village loft space. We’ll film each event and edit it down to a compelling short film for broadcast online.” You can RSVP to the November 8th kick-off, which features John Jeremiah Sullivan and the Brooklyn-based band Caveman, here.
Sourcing ‘The Hobbit’
In an essay for The Guardian, John Garth identifies an interesting source for parts of Tolkien‘s The Hobbit: Native American lore.
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Comicanon
BH Shepherd rounds up five comics (such as Maus and Watchmen) he’d include in the literary canon.