Our own Mark O’Connell has reviewed How Literature Saved My Life by David Shields in this week’s New York Times Book Review. “When you read David Shields, the first thing you learn is that he takes literature very seriously.”
O’Connell on Shields
Remnick Interviewed
Robert Birnbaum has a terrific, funny, wide-ranging interview with David Remnick, a must read for all the New Yorker obsessives out there. (via Kottke)
Why Book Critics Matter
Let us now praise professional book reviewers, like them or not. And speaking of reviews, Niall Ferguson threatens the L.R.B. with legal action over a negative review of his new book, Civilization (via).
Fiction by Allegra Goodman
Recommended reading: elderly sisters contend with the youngest dying, in a quietly wry new story by Allegra Goodman at the New Yorker. “She pretended to sleep, and then she really did drop off. When she woke, her sisters were hovering over her. Some of us have overstayed our welcome, Jeanne thought. And then, with sudden shock, No: I’m the one. That would be me.”
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All Hail King Brody
Damian Lewis is going from being a traitor of a country to running one. He will star as Henry VIII in the BBC’s adaptations of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. Mark Rylance will play Thomas Cromwell (though previously he’s played another role in the court, Sir Thomas Boleyn.)
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A Girl Is a Fully-Formed Thing
“The things I do not want to write about become the things I write about.” Year in Reading alumnus Eimear McBride talks to The Guardian on the occasion of her second novel’s arrival. The Lesser Bohemians follows upon her hugely successful debut, A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing, which we reviewed back when it came out in the U.S.
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The Handmaid’s Tale on TV
The Handmaid’s Tale is making its series debut on Hulu with Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men) starring as Offred. Get ready for Gilead.