“The Navajo Nation’s first-ever Poet Laureate has been named and will be officially introduced to the public on May 17.”
Navajo Nation’s First Poet Laureate
Boy Geniuses
A snarky take on Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze‘s Wild Things and a positively damning view of Wes Anderson‘s behavior during the filming of his forthcoming adaptation of Roald Dahl‘s The Fantastic Mr. Fox, all available at Gawker.
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“Once on This Island”
“I thought it was going to be a short novel, that it was one person’s story. But I was wrong, because history is always shaping everything.” The New York Times reviews Marlon James‘s latest novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, which we covered in our “Great Second-Half 2014 Book Preview.”
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Yaa Gyasi on the Inevitable Risk of Living
Yaa Gyasi discusses the theme of risk in her latest novel, Transcendent Kingdom, and how it is necessary in both pleasure and pain.
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The Other Bill of Rights
“I can read whatever I want. No one can stop me. I can help other people read what they want. And no one can stop them.” Zoe Fisher for The Rumpus about being “a horny queer teenager” who found her home in libraries. Pair with a controversial piece from our own pages this week by Douglas Koziol, a bookseller exploring what to do with “a book that you not only find objectionable but also believe actually dangerous in the lessons it portends amidst such a politically precarious time?”
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The Story Behind the Letter
Letters of Note posted an incredible letter from a former slave, and Kottke rounded up some more info he and others uncovered about the letter writer.
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