As you may have heard, this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the passing of Sylvia Plath. It also, not coincidentally, marks the release of two new biographies: American Isis (the first to draw material from the recently-opened Ted Hughes archive) and Mad Girl’s Love Song (which looks at the poet’s relationship with her “big, dark, hunky boy”). Emma Garman weighs the impact of all this new scholarship at Salon.
Through a Bell Darkly
Anything that helps you to see. Anything that makes you look
On Flannery O’ Connor’s practice of making visual art, and how the habits of an artist informed her sensibility as a writer.
●
●
Lydia Davis Whistles
Carol Hughes to Write Memoir
Ted Hughes’s widow, Carol Hughes, intends to write a memoir about her marriage to the former poet laureate.
●
●
Rich Guys Readin’ Books
Hat tip to Melville House’s Dustin Kurtz for sharing The Gates Notes with the world. Now you can read real book reviews written by America’s wealthiest man. That’s almost as good as reading real book reviews written by one of the world’s most powerful conservative fundraisers.
Jesse Ball in Guernica Magazine
Guernica is running Pieter Emily, Jesse Ball’s newest work, in three installments over the next six weeks. The first installment is now available.
Convicts and Classics
Apparently, great books can be life changing: British prisons have begun using a literature course originally developed in the US and including Shakespeare, Dickens, and Steinbeck to help rehabilitate criminals.
●
●