Recommended Reading: “So I Went Away” by Crapalachia author Scott McClanahan.
“Years passed.”
“Working on some short stories but … not that into it”
HTML Giant contributor Jimmy Chen has written a masterful and hysterical piece for McSweeney’s entitled “Raymond Carver’s OKCupid Profile, Edited by Gordon Lish.”
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The Poet’s Novel
Do poets make great novelists? Naja Marie Aidt, a phenomenal poet-novelist herself, picks her favorite novels by poets, featuring Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red, Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station, and more.
You’re Obama
“And then Obama comes over to my desk with the speech, and he has a few edits. And he’s like, ‘I just want to go through some of these edits and make sure you’re ok with this. I did this for this reason. Are you ok with that?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, buddy. You’re Barack Obama.’” Jon Favreau, former chief speechwriter to President Obama, sits down with Longform.
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Science Fiction and the Paperback Novel
Fun fact: Up until the late 1940s, science fiction novels really didn’t exist. Andrew Liptak writes about the rise of the paperback novel and the evolution of science fiction for Kirkus Reviews. Pair with Nichole Bernier‘s Millions essay on “The Point of the Paperback.”
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Expiration Date
“Echoes are etched into the pages thanks to margin-scrawled notes, a yellowed coffee splatter or sticky peanut-butter-and-jelly fingerprints.” In her project “Expired,” photographer Kerry Mansfield documents the life of library books. We suggest pairing The Guardian‘s gallery of her photos with our own Jacob Lambert‘s “Open Letter to the Person Who Wiped Boogers on My Library Book.”
Four Legs Good
This week in book-related infographics: a look at “Memorable Animals from Literature” ranging from Moby Dick to Snowball to Jonathan Livingston Seagull. After all, lest we forget, “four legs good, two legs bad.”
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Who You’ve Lost
This incredible essay from Rita Gabis at Guernica examines the bizarre intersection of dreams, truth, and murder. If that subject matter piques your interest, here are a few essays from The Millions that also touch on dreams, truth, and murder, respectively.