“Russia’s most celebrated writers – including Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn and Mandelstam – are often depicted as solitary geniuses. But many of their works were the fruits of creative partnerships with their wives. Far from being passive typists, they served as editors, researchers, translators, publishers and more.”
The Wives of Russian Masters
Appearing Elsewhere
German readers of The Millions, if you're out there (or people with friends in Germany): I'll be reading in Munich, Hamburg, and Berlin this week from Ein Naturführer der amerikanischen familie. Please come!
Tuesday New Release Day: Hustvedt; Poissant; Livers; Dermont; Kirn; Butler; Kerouac
Out this week: The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt; The Heaven of Animals by David James Poissant; Cementville by Paulette Livers; Damage Control by Amber Dermont; Blood Will Out by Up in the Air author Walter Kirn; Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler; and The Haunted Life, a new collection of early writing by Jack Kerouac.
●
●
#LitBeat: NYC <3’s The Rumpus back!
Last night Colson Whitehead, Sam Lipsyte, Amber Tamblyn, and Andrew McCarthy read to some New Yorkers at Public Assembly, simply because practically everyone likes The Rumpus. Here's Specter Magazine's editor, Mensah Demary, with the latest installment of #LitBeat.
●
●
“I’ve known you and known you and known you.”
Recommended Reading: Delaney Nolan's recent piece in Guernica, "How I Gonna Bare My Neck Outside in the Sweat-Scared Morning."
“Give things away”
Recommended Reading: this interview with poet Lucie Brock-Broido, whose new book Stay, Illusion is a finalist for the National Book Award.
●
●
Fin
Picture books have always been a good way to teach your children difficult concepts. They cover everything from bodily functions to the makeup of modern families. At Slate, Gabriel Roth writes about a picture book that taught his child about death. You could also read T.K. Dalton on teaching your children about gender.
●
●
‘A Letter in Living Color’
Says the New York Times: "We recently received, in a tube sent by postal mail, something new in our experience: a 15-foot-long scroll to the editor." (via @LettersOfNote)
●
●