Dieting tips from Muriel Spark.
New Year, New You
Bubbles and Zeroes
There’s been a lot of digital ink spilled about the traumas lurking in the comment section. It’s almost a rite of passage to get abused for something you write. But there’s another kind of trauma — what happens when you get no comments at all? At The Rumpus, Rachel Newcombe writes about a new kind of emptiness.
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Three Women, Three Lives
“It’s a major work of scholarship and interpretation, but also one that some readers may foolishly reject as unimportant on account of its theme, the ultimate ‘minor’ topic in the eyes of the heterosexual masses.” In the LRB, Terry Castle reviews Lisa Cohen’s new biography.
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A Lot o’ Duffers
Nobody wants to be a Hufflepuff! Over at The Atlantic, David Sims defends the oft-maligned Harry Potter house for their egalitarian ethos and general goodness. At The Millions, Michelle Dean’s essay about the value of J.K. Rowling’s Potter series will have you wanting to give them a re-read.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Martin, Pollock, Spiotta, Ball, Weiner, Peach, Goodman
New this week is George R.R. Martin’s latest Song of Ice and Fire installment, A Dance with Dragons. Also hitting shelves: Donald Ray Pollock’s The Devil All the Time and Dana Spiotta’s Stone Arabia (Don’t miss our preview with tons more upcoming books.) Jesse Ball, whose The Curfew has just come out, also has a new collection, The Village on Horseback. Jennifer Weiner’s new book, Then Came You, is out, as is the first issue of McSweeney’s new food magazine, Lucky Peach. Out in paperback: Allegra Goodman’s The Cookbook Collector.
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Garcia Marquez Movie Protested
Production of a film based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Memories of My Melancholy Whores is being met with opposition from anti-prostitution groups in Mexico. HuffPo has the story. (Thanks Buzz)
The Last Samurai
Recommended Reading: On Helen DeWitt’s novel The Last Samurai and how it cultivates ambition in its readers.
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