This Valentine’s Day, break out the Barthes and let critical theory decide the shape and scope of your sweet nothings.
A Lover’s Discourse
Sketches of a Life
Recommended Reading: On Lucia Berlin’s final stories, “a series of sketches which traced her life.”
●
●
“We call it Book”
Old but still as timely as ever: The latest and greatest in cutting-edge reading technology from Penny Arcade.
●
●
Stories in Space
Recommended Reading: On new posters from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and space travel’s place in storytelling. Dominic Smith asks why there aren’t more stories in space.
●
●
It’s Not the Spectacles and Pageantry…
Dan Brown gets D.C. wrong, says Slate. (But isn’t this just another way of saying that it belongs with almost every other narrative, literary or televisual, ever concocted about the Diamond District?)
Tuesday New Release Day: Whitehead, Jin, Gray
Colson Whitehead’s zombie thriller Zone One hits shelves today, as does Ha Jin’s Nanjing Requiem. Also out is The Journals of Spalding Gray.
●
●
A Necessary Evil
Is the system rigged? Aaron Bady at The New Inquiry discusses the inherent evil of the canon and the general problem with lists. For more on why we care about literary awards in the first place, here is Mark O’Connell from The Millions.
●
●
Problem Solving
●
●