The kind folks at the PEN American Center recorded Colum McCann’s recent conversation with author and soccer ace Aleksandar Hemon. Listen to the pair discuss the Western distinction between fiction and non-fiction, and also the hypothetical merits of “watching a potato.”
McCann and Hemon in Conversation
Endless Depths
Every so often, a piece comes along that rends the fragile mind, employing a devil’s portion of mundane details to lay bare the inescapable futility of all human endeavor. This is the only rational way to describe this piece at The Awl, which takes the form of a conversation between Karl Ove Knausgaard and True Detective’s Nic Pizzolatto.
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Audible Writers
Apropos of my literary YouTube posts, our own Mark O’Connell riffs on the speaking voice of several authors.
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Caballo Blanco Goes Missing
In Born to Run, author Christopher McDougall talks about the legendary accomplishments of ultrarunner Micah Tue, aka Caballo Blanco, or “the wandering White Horse of Mexico’s Copper Canyons.” Last month, Tue disappeared after embarking on a 12-mile run in Gila National Forest. Distraught, worried, and curious, McDougall set off on a hunt to track him down.
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Hari Kunzru Reads Tonight
Tonight at 7pm, Hari Kunzru will visit WORD bookstore at 126 Franklin Street, Brooklyn, NY for an event co-hosted by The Millions. Visit the WORD website for further details and RSVP. Join us!
Edan’s Story is The Standard
Our own Edan Lepucki’s “Ambulance of Boys” was one of the finalists in the Standard/Warby Short Story Contest. You can read check out all of the winners over here. (Edan’s is on page 8.)
Capote Quiz
The OUP’s blog has created a Truman Capote quiz. The idea is to match the author’s quotation with its literary victim.
Tuesday New Release Day: Pamuk, Zambreno, Wickersham, Vonnegut, Achebe, Egan
New this week is Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk’s Silent House. Also hitting bookshelves are Heroines by Kate Zambreno, The News from Spain by Joan Wickersham, and more posthumously published work by Kurt Vonnegut. In non-fiction, there’s There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe and Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winner Timothy Egan’s biography of Edward Curtis.
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