The New Republic has launched its new redesign, and with it, asks the question as to whether Beyonce can have it all, let alone us mere mortals.
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Win Zak Smith’s Gravity’s Rainbow
The Quarterly Conversation is holding a contest for readers. They’ll be giving away a hardcover copy of Zak Smith’s illustrated Gravity’s Rainbow.
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Watching A Wrinkle in Time
The movie adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time premiered this week. Before or after you see the movie (there are some spoilers if you haven’t seen it or read the book) read this essay by Alanna Bennett on the simple, but revolutionary power of the story and Ava DuVernay’s book-to-screen vision.
At Year’s End
“Year-end lists are always subjective and incomplete, but they are especially tricky for books. A dedicated film critic can watch every wide release film and a theater critic can go to most every play, but the book critic is faced with an insurmountable mountain of books each year. The sheer number of books is inspiring as a reader, but it can make “best of” lists laughably subjective when the critic has only read a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of books published each year.” This might help to explain the logic and intent of our own Year in Reading series, but it also prefaces Electric Literature‘s list of the top 25 story collections of 2014 (which includes recent Year in Reading alum Phil Klay‘s Redeployment).
By Way of a Recommendation
Charles D’Ambrosio‘s Loitering has officially made it into our Hall of Fame. It was also a finalist for the PEN award for the Art of the Essay. Now the book’s preface is available on the PEN website, just in case all the book’s popularity and prizes haven’t yet convinced you to read it.
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Arthur Phillips, Still Writing
This thoroughly entertaining conversation between Robert Birnbaum and Arthur Phillips is not to be missed. Topics include faking Shakespeare, beagles, being anti-social in Brooklyn, pilates, and writing for a living.
A Frank Poet
“Say surrender. Say alabaster. Switchblade. / Honeysuckle. Goldenrod. Say autumn. / Say autumn despite the green
in your eyes. Beauty despite / daylight. Say you’d kill for it. Unbreakable dawn / mounting in your throat. / My thrashing beneath you / like a sparrow stunned / with falling.” Last week, Ocean Vuong published his newest collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds. This week, it seems to be all anyone can talk about (because it’s fantastic). Here’s a piece from The New Yorker on Vuong and his designs for the English language.
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Unpredictable Lit
“These people may not take you seriously. And your boss might not either. Or your dentist or your best friend from middle school. But you who does take you seriously? Dictators. Dictators take you very seriously. Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot and Augusto Pinochet, all rounded up writers and artists in short order. They could not afford to have the unpredictability of literature at large while they were trying to create a totalitarian state.” Wendy Willis on subversion through writing for The Rumpus.
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