Jacob Silverman reviews two new novels – Note to Self and The More You Ignore Me – that “take on one incarnation of the Internet: the Internet as pathology” but ultimately fail to succeed “in exploring or critiquing digital life with any authority.” He notes that “like any technology, [the Internet] has to be shaped for the purposes of literature.”
On Internet Fiction
“The historic past unrolls like a park”
Recommended Reading: Sadie Stein on the writing of Elizabeth Bowen.
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More on Roth
The Economist digs into the stupid “debate” over Philip Roth’s International Booker win.
The 2016 BTBA Longlist
The longlist for this year’s Best Translated Book Award came out. Fiction finalists include Year in Reading alumna Katrina Dodson’s translation of Clarice Lispector’s Complete Stories (reviewed here by Magdalena Edwards), Ann Goldstein’s translation of Elena Ferrante’s The Story of the Lost Child, Lisa Dillman’s translation of Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World (discussed here in our Book Report), and Christina MacSweeney’s translation of Valeria Luiselli’s The Story of My Teeth (reviewed here by Lily Meyer). Poetry finalists include Jason Weiss’s translation of Silvina Ocampo and Fiona Sze-Lorrain’s translation of Yi Lu.
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Docudrama
Recommended Reading: Daniel Green on Harold Jaffe’s Induced Coma.
Tuesday New Release Day: Bezmozgis; Pratchett; Simpson; McCabe; Oliver; Moran
Out this week: The Betrayers by David Bezmozgis; A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Nonfiction by Terry Pratchett; Ballroom by Alice Simpson; Hello Mr. Bones & Goodbye Mr. Rat by Patrick McCabe; Rooms by Lauren Oliver; and How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran, who released an essay collection two years ago. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great Second-half 2014 Book Preview.
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The End of Marcus Books
The novel might not be dead, but some independent bookstores are struggling to stay alive. Last week, we reported that America’s oldest LGBT bookstore, Giovanni’s Room, is closing soon. Now, America’s oldest black bookstore, Marcus Books, has received an eviction notice. The 54-year-old bookstore is a mainstay of San Francisco’s African American Fillmore District but hasn’t been able to pay its rent for a while.
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T. S. Eliot: Proud Banker
Many aspiring writers wind up in publishing jobs or teaching posts. Some view the career choice as a happy union between their creative interests and their vocational qualifications. T. S. Eliot was not so. In an article for The Rumpus, Lisa Levy notes that the poet continued “to work at the bank even after his poems [became] successful,” and that the poet found the work “more conducive to writing poetry and criticism than taking a more literary job might be.”
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