To celebrate National Poetry Month, The Atlantic’s Twitter book club is reading (and discussing) The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry. Follow along on Twitter @1book140.
A Touch of Worldliness
7 reasons not to write a novel
Javier Marías cogently summarizes all the reasons to stop writing novels immediately, and adds only one reason to write them anyway: “Fiction is the most bearable of worlds.” We reviewed The Infatuations, one of his own twelve works (to date), last year.
What’s Wrong with Books?
Jenny Slate and Gabe Liedman explain what’s wrong with books: “They’re heavy…the shit in them is dumb…”
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The Marriage Plot, The Movie?
Superbad and Adventureland director Greg Mottola is reportedly eying Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel The Marriage Plot for a possible big screen adaptation.
Sneak Peek
The summer issue of Moss is out, featuring the opening chapters of our own Sonya Chung’s forthcoming novel, The Loved Ones. For more more of her writing, check out her Millions essay on breaking up with books.
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Zbigniew Herbert on Leonardo da Vinci
With the publication of Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert’s The Collected Prose: 1948-1998 this week, the New York Review of Books Blog posts his essay on Leonardo da Vinci.
A Boor
Recommended Reading: This primer on how to explain without mansplaining.
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Ich bin ein Berliner
The kind souls at NYRB Classics have nicely posted the first story from Robert Walser’s Berlin Stories, “Good Morning, Giantess!” on their Tumblr. The collection got a nice little write up in this weekend’s New York Times, too.