Notes on Letters
Carol Hughes to Write Memoir
Ted Hughes’s widow, Carol Hughes, intends to write a memoir about her marriage to the former poet laureate.
Turn Left There
Francois Vincent of McSweeney’s has published his hilarious take on asking for directions in short stories. Pair with this list of forty-five of The Millions’s favorite short story collections of all time.
Tuesday New Release Day: Coetzee; Li; Enriquez; Hoffman; Hogan; Puchner; Shepard
Out this week: The Schooldays of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee; Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li; Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez; Running by Cara Hoffman; The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan; Last Day On Earth by Eric Puchner; and The World to Come by Jim Shepard. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
52,757
Last night, during President Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, people were sending out 52,757 Obama related tweets per minute. This morning, the speech was fact checked. And here’s what Steve Almond wished Obama had said.
Train Dreams
Wes Anderson really likes trains, and not just any trains — the director of The Grand Budapest Hotel is a big fan of riding on Amtrak. “It’s one thing to be stuck together for the long haul to New Zealand in the upper deck of a 747 for 16 hours,” he told a writer for the company’ s blog, “but it’s an altogether different matter to hit the dining car three meals a day for two and a half days running onboard the Southwest Chief.” This may be a good time to read our own Nick Ripatrazone’s essay on writers and trains.
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If You Like TED Talks
On the Media‘s Bob Garfield hosts “The Genius Dialogues,” a new interview podcast featuring recipients of the MacArthur Foundation’s so-called genius grants. First-season guests include Radiolab creator Jad Abumrad; Luis von Ahn, founder of the language learning app DuoLingo; microbiologist Manu Prakash; choreographer Elizabeth Streb; and writer and producer David Simon. We’ve hosted a few geniuses here as well, including Ben Lerner, Yiyun Li, and Karen Russell.
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