“Some psychiatrists say that music has therapeutic powers and can even restore fluidity and mental structure for a moment in some patients – music is the opposite of chaos. It may be that heavy metal, the music his parents blamed in part for this entire catastrophe, is the only thing that gives order to my cousin’s worn-out brain. No one knows, except him.” On trying to seek refuge from schizophrenia in heavy metal.
The Sound of Anathema
Here Comes the Rooster
The Tournament of Books has returned, and this year's judges include our own Kirstin Butler!
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Dubliners, 100 Years Later
At Flavorwire Jonathan Sturgeon considers what we've learned from Dubliners in the hundred years since it was first published and argues that "when it comes to realism, Dubliners, more than even Chekhov’s short fiction, is the model we routinely fail to live up to." Sturgeon's reflections on Joyce's free indirect discourse pair well with Jonathan Russell Clark's Millions essay on close writing, and his essay isn't completely without hope: he concludes with a few books that, "on the surface, look nothing like Dubliners, but, in spirit... show that Joyce’s book still lives 100 years on."
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Extras
Zadie Smith's On Beauty takes home the Orange Prize.Map of the New Yorker caption contest winners. (via emdashes)Abebooks has put together some special pages celebrating its 10th anniversary. Check out Powers of 10 - which includes the list of most expensive books ever sold on the site - and the timeline, which shows what the site looked like at its humble beginnings. (thanks Laurie.)
Asian Female Characters in the 21st Century
Read this interview with Mary H.K. Choi where she discusses her novel, Emergency Contact, and how it offers a more modern (2010s) portrayal of Asian American mother-daughter relationships. "Choi’s novel blows up Asian female stereotypes and prods readers to question their own cultural biases about women of color. For instance: Not all Asian moms are like Lane Kim’s in “Gilmore Girls.” Not all of them own antique shops or dry cleaners, care singularly about grades and won’t let their baby tiger cubs date until they’ve finished graduate school."
Nonfiction for Fiction Writers
"I think writing about the real world, as we live in it today, is very difficult; many writers try to escape it. But then what books will be the classics from our generation? Which of them will be the commentaries on our lot?" William Ruof argues that studying nonfiction may make the best fiction writers in a piece for The State Press.
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Big Names, New eBooks
A pair of big-name writers have new shorter-form ebook originals out. Stephen King's Guns is a "pulls-no-punches essay" about gun violence in America, with all proceeds going to Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Meanwhile, Richard Russo has a new novella, Nate in Venice.
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