If you enjoyed the profile of Anne Carson in the latest New York Times Magazine – fictitious “ice bats” notwithstanding – you’re going to really love Parul Sehgal and Nathan Huffstutter’s two takes on Red Doc>. The work, Sehgal writes, is “suspended between what it is and what we want it to be.” And also, writes Huffstutter, it’s a work that “courses with a wit shot through with intelligence and humility.”
Two Takes on Red Doc>
Two Bards
The second time Eudora Welty met William Faulkner, the latter brought the former out on a ride in his boat. She wrote a letter to Jean Stafford in 1949 that described the experience in entertaining detail. At The Paris Review Daily, you can read the letter in full. Pair with: James McWilliams on Faulkner’s novel The Reivers.
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Give Me a Break
It’s Labor Day weekend, a perfect time relax and center yourself after a particularly boring work week. What better way than with this helpful (and hilarious) collection of stress-relieving adult-coloring-book pages of things that stress you out, including everything from Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston’s “super aggro press tour” to awkward conversations on the subway.
“What fascinates me are the turning points”
At The Guardian’s website, Hilary Mantel reflects on her second Booker Prize, awarded to the author for her new novel, Bring Up the Bodies. Mantel is the first woman to win the prize more than once.
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Decolonizing Our Shelves
“… Stop talking about diversity and start decolonizing our shelves.”At the Winter Institute 2018 (Wi13), keynote speaker Junot Diaz lambasted the publishing industry for talking — but doing little else — about diversity in literature, and implored librarians and booksellers to fill their shelves with diverse books. From our archives: an essay on race, gender, and Diaz’s writing.
No Matter How Small
Over at The Atlantic, Lydia Millet argues for the power and legitimacy of The Lorax’s moral message. Millet believes that the heavy-handedness of activist-minded fiction like The Lorax is powerful partly due to “its shamelessness. It pulls no punches; it wears its teacher heart on its sleeve.”
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There’s No Escaping Your Textbooks Now
A new service available to Australian students might cut down on the line lengths at university bookstores. Then again, it might also usher in an age of self-aware, Skynet-esque airborne Terminators. Presenting: drones specializing in textbook delivery.