Parul Sehgal cures your “bland biography”-induced malaise by prescribing “three delightfully deranging books” in which writers “riff on the women who’ve consumed them.”
Obsessing Over Women
Smuggling Ulysses
Ulysses: The one book that publishers (and Joyce himself) desperately wanted to be confiscated - all in an effort to confront censorship, of course. Mental Floss has the full story.
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Burn Outs and Genre Blindness
Where does the “panic attack when you think you’re not reading enough” fit in to all of this? Here are a few professional readers on how they keep from mixing business with pleasure. This essay on Lewis Lapham and reading just for pleasure might also tickle your fancy.
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“Great pendulous melons dangled like gods”
Recommended Reading: “The Pumpkin Tree” by Robert Wrigley.
O’Brien’s Bridge
If the Dublin City Council doesn’t name their newest bridge after Flann O’Brien, writes Frank McNally, then perhaps the author’s memorial should be built in Paris, Zurich, Trieste, or “any of the other great European cities to which he didn’t emigrate.”
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Lev Grossman on Aspiring Writers
Lev Grossman offers some words of encouragement for aspiring writers: "because it turns out that talent, whatever that is, and that glowy aura, are only part of the picture."
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Hughes and Plath Interviewed
Recommended Listening: A 1961 BBC interview with Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Pair with our review of Ted Hughes: The Unauthorized Life.
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