Masha Gessen will be the first writer to publish a book about the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Previously the author demonstrated her knowledge of Chechnya in her 2012 book The Man Without a Face. Gessen, who is also working on a book about embattled punk group Pussy Riot, will reportedly leave her directorship at Moscow Radio Liberty in order to report on both projects full time.
Masha Gessen Signs on to Write Tsarnaev Book
NPR Reviews the New Franzen
Alan Cheuse‘s review of Jonathan Franzen‘s much-anticipated new novel, Freedom, appeared on All Things Considered yesterday…and begs the question of what kind of compassion we look for in novels.
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I Doubt The Authors Would’ve Been Thrilled With This
Deep South Magazine‘s Hunter Murphy compiled a list of “The Greatest Bromances in Southern Literature.”
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Fry’s Winsome Kingdom
Fans of British comedic polymath and Apple fanboy Stephen Fry might be interested to know that the first season of Kingdom, Fry’s recent three-season British television series is available on Hulu. (Seasons 2 and; 3 are available on DVD in the US, but Season 1, mystifyingly, is not.) The series follows the doings of empathetic, small town Norfolk solicitor Peter Kingdom (Fry) and his gently eccentric fellow residents of the seaside town of Market Shipborough (actually Wells-Next-the-Sea). It’s soothing, cozy stuff.
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The Help: Feel-Good or Offensive?
Though it had a promising box office debut, The Help is ruffling some feathers for its portrayal of African American women. Roxane Gay sums things up nicely for The Rumpus.
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True Romance
We might mock romance readers for how much Kleenex they go through, but they’re more emotionally perceptive than others. A new study on the interpersonal sensitivity of readers found that romance readers are better at discerning facial cues and emotion than other literati. But don’t worry if you aren’t a Nicholas Sparks fan; reading any genre makes you more empathetic, as we’ve reported on before.
Greatly Exaggerated
At 74, Clive James is a remarkably prolific poet, one who’s working hard to finish or publish three books in the next year alone. He spoke with Douglas Murray of The Spectator about his unflagging energy. “At the moment, I am in the slightly embarrassing position where I write poems saying I am about to die and I don’t,” he says. You could also read our own Garth Risk Hallberg on James’s book Cultural Amnesia.
Big Picture
The cartoonist Joe Sacco has a new graphic novel out that uses a twenty-four-foot panorama to depict the first day of the Battle of the Somme. At Salon, Sacco tells Daniel D’Addario that his upbringing in Australia, where the landings at Gallipoli have great patriotic significance, helped to spur his interest in the War to End All Wars. (Related: we interviewed Sacco last year.)