Back in May, our own Sonya Chung reviewed All That Is, the first novel in 35 years by A Sport and a Pastime author James Salter. For another viewpoint (courtesy of the LRB), check out James Meek’s assessment of the book alongside Salter’s Collected Stories.
A Great Career
What’s Wrong with Books?
Jenny Slate and Gabe Liedman explain what’s wrong with books: “They’re heavy…the shit in them is dumb…”
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Pork Problem
“First, catch your pig.” This is the beginning of Harper Lee’s recipe for cornbread, but it’s not the first time pork has preoccupied her writing. At The Paris Review, Sadie Stein examines the use of ham in Lee’s fiction.
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Balzac in the 21st Century
Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the 21st Century, has said that he drew inspiration from the social-criticism novels of Austen, Dickens, and Balzac. According to the LA Review of Books, the new Gilded Age that Piketty critiques has generated–and will continue to generate–social novels of its own.
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The Rooster Bequeathed
In a real nail-biter, the winner of this year’s Tournament of Books is…
Amazon’s First-Half Top 10
Amazon has named its Best Books of 2010… So Far (that’s January through June).
The Magnetic Fields: Rock’s Most Bookish Band?
At the NYRB, the Magnetic Fields’ Claudia Gonson offers a sort of “Life in Reading”: “I was very into Lord Jim for a year.”
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LMAOR
Andy Borowitz (of The Borowitz Report) picks five novels “that are enough to make anyone laugh.”
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