“Our bookstores hold a place in our communities where people go to escape their lives, to talk to a real person and just sit in a comfy chair surrounded by personally curated literature. This is what we do, who we are, so let’s make an extra effort to step away from our desks and computers and provide a safe and compassionate place for people to share their anger and grief today.” In the wake of Monday’s tragedy, Boston’s bookstores figure out how to deal. And at The New Yorker, a poem for Boston.
The Importance of Literature
Our New Enemy
The new issue of The Enemy is out, and it’s got some goodies which may be of interest to Millions readers. Among them are two new poems by Ruth Ellen Kocher, who won the 2014 PEN Open Book prize; an appraisal of the value of bad art by sociologist Alison Gerber; and a reassessment of the MFA by Beckett Flannery.
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“A move that was, in a way, Chappelle’s birthright”
The thing about Dave Chappelle, writes Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah in her marvelous essay on the comedian’s family history, the success of Chappelle’s Show, and how the two informed his opinions on race, “is that he was suddenly vaulted into the awkward position of being the world’s most famous interlocutor in a conversation about race—the one conversation no one likes having.” In light of his recent heckling in Connecticut, as well as the continued misinterpretation of his comedy, “it’s easy to understand why Chappelle was done with being misread, tired of explaining, [and so he] finished talking.”
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North Woods Winter Watercolor
Recommended Reading: Oliver Bendorf’s poetry comic “Experiment With Color in a North Woods Winter” at Hobart.
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Once more about Martin Amis, dear friends, once more
Did you dig Mark O’Connell’s review of Martin Amis’s Lionel Asbo so much that you yearn for more? Well, here’s the author’s interview with Capital, and here’s Parul Sehgal’s take on how the book’s “taut mousetrap ready to go off” sadly “never snaps.”
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Edwin Frank Interview
Vince Manapat’s interview with NYRB Classics editor Edwin Frank provides an interesting (if slightly erroneous) history of how the publisher got started. If you come away from the interview wondering what Mr. Frank recommends reading, then, ta-da! and look no further.