The new book by Alain de Botton, How to Think More About Sex, addresses exactly what you’d think it would based on a glance at its title. According to de Botton, the word “sexy,” at base, refers to people or things which mimic our deeply-held values. At Brain Pickings, you can read more excerpts.
A Titillating Read
Critic-in-Chief
“She could be a diva, says this source, 'but in a way I fucking admire it. The world would be a sorrier place without divas.'” For New York magazine, Boris Kachka on the drama behind Michiko Kakutani's departure from The New York Times and what her absence means for the world of books. Consider also: our own Matt Seidel's rogue's gallery of prominent critics.
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“Finish that Book!”
Recommended reading: An argument for finishing every novel you start.
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“Let us not desert one another”
In honor of Jane Austen's recent birthday: five feminist lessons, culled from her body of work.
The Desert Oracle Gives You the Desert
Pacific Standards profiles Ken Layne who quietly started the popular quarterly literary magazine, Desert Oracle for a town of 8,000 people. Now it has gained far more readers than that as it highlights works related to the American desert. "The reason that the Oracle works is that it's always trying to elicit that feeling, the awe and wonder that the desert reveals to you when you listen hard enough. Layne believes it's not an accident that religious awakenings, UFO sightings, walkabouts, and other revelations occur in the desert. It's a consequence of solitude, stark beauty, and the tenacious life that only the desert has."
The Bad Sex Award
What's it like to win the Literary Review's Bad Sex award? As 2010 "winner" Rowan Somerville reports, "It's a hard pill to swallow ... Despite the magazine's assertion that 'it's only a bit of fun' there's an atmosphere of bullying peculiar to public schools about the whole thing."
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More BEA coverage
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Sex, Drugs, and Literary History
Will anyone read Chuck Klosterman in a hundred years? Jonathan Russell Clark explores the possibility over at The Literary Hub: "What fate awaits the author of books so rooted in a given era? Can the accomplishment of capturing now remain significant or noteworthy forever? Will anyone read Klosterman in the future? And if they do, how will they read him?" In the mood for more JRC? How about his essay on the art of the first sentence?