Six novelists discuss their second-favorite art forms (after writing, of course). Before you click, see if you can guess which one of these folks is most interested in opera: Kazuo Ishiguro, Lavinia Greenlaw, John Lanchester, Alan Werner, Sarah Hall and Colm Tóibín.
The Other Arts
David Foster Wallace Syllabus
The Harry Ransom Center has scanned and uploaded the syllabus from David Foster Wallace‘s Fall 1994 section of English 102: Literary Analysis.
Eat, Pray, Write a Novel
Landlord, patron, gardener, traveler— Elizabeth Gilbert is so much more than a memoirist. Steve Almond profiles Gilbert for The New York Times and finds out about her return to fiction with her new novel, The Signature of All Things. Yet Gilbert doesn’t disparage her Eat, Pray, Love fame and readers, even if others do. “I want to say: ‘Go [expletive] yourself! You have no idea who the women are who read my books, and if I have to choose between them and you, I’m choosing them.’”
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The Afterlife of David Foster Wallace
“Wallace’s status has rapidly evolved from marginal writer, noted for long, experimental work, to indispensable reference point for people writing about almost anything—from college football to WikiLeaks.” On the powerful afterlife of David Foster Wallace.
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On Being an Unfair Teacher
“Classroom lessons may slip quickly through students’ fingers, but the classroom experience lingers in memory. Each teacher offers students a different model of authority and justice. We set our own standards of fairness and sometimes fail to honor them. A teacher swings a heavy club, and we can leave big, purple bruises if we’re not careful.” Ben Orlin writes for The Atlantic about becoming an unfair teacher and then resolving to improve. For more thoughts about teaching, be sure to check out our own Nick Ripatrazone‘s “55 Thoughts for English Teachers.“
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Get Off Get Paid
“It wasn’t our job to be aroused; it was our job to enhance literature meant to arouse our paying readers.” Kayleigh Hughes writes for Catapult about her year of editing e-erotica. You will learn myriad things from her account, such that publishers list “every sex act contained in every book, and the page on which those activities could be found, so that those in sales could properly categorize and organize the books for maximum success in the e-market.” And if your lust still requires further satiation, see also this account of writing the erotica itself.
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Top Travel Books
Travel site WorldHum has created a top-100 travel books of all time list. The list includes many Millions favorites (Theroux, Kapuscinski, etc).
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Koestler the Dangerous Intellectual
The Times Literary Supplement profiles Darkness at Noon author Arthur Koestler as an iconic “Dangerous Intellectual”: “‘My analysis … is: one third genius, one third blackguard and one third lunatic …’”
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