Eric Benson interviewed Bruce Jackson about “the strange and brutal world of Southern prison farms.” Jackson, who recently published a collection entitled Inside the Wire, snapped prison photographs in Texas and Arkansas from 1964 to 1979. The images depict both the mundane and the surreal, occasionally appearing as though they were “taken from a fever dream.”
Prisons From Another World, Another Time
A great hater of bad books.
The true confessions of Lev Grossman, book reviewer: "There was a time when I actually believed, because I was an ass, that as a critic I was an avenging angel with a flaming sword, and that part of my job was to help rid the culture of books that were sucking up more of the literary oxygen than they deserved."
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Elena Ferrante, Author. Columnist?
Best selling author Elena Ferrante will be a new weekend columnist for the Guardian magazine. Why did she decide to go this route in addition to writing a screenplay? Read her reasoning and pair with this essay on reading Italy through Ferrante's work.
Finnegans Punk
Forget One Direction. Meet the little known boy band made up of John Cage, James Joyce, and Joey Ramone. Cage composed a song based on Joyce's Finnegans Wake called "The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs," which Ramone later sang to haunting effect.
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Curiosities: Alternative Punctuation
Newsweek names "The Most Dangerous Man in Publishing."Adam Kirsch interviewed about his new bio of Benjamin Disraeli."Daily Routines: How writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days." (via Jacket Copy)David Horvitz discovers several pages of his writing in this year's Dave Eggers-edited Best American Nonrequired Reading. He was not told that his work (pulled from his website) would be appearing in the book. Now he is peeved and has made several demands. (No permalinks, so check out the long Dec. 9 entry.) (Thanks Buzz)The LA Times unveils its Favorite Books 2008.Google's year-end "Zeitgeist" of 2008 search activity. Breaking Dawn the unsurprising top search.Recently discovered aggregators of quality content: The Browser and Give Me Something to Read.This week's Wikipedia treat: a gem of alternative punctuation: the "irony mark." In the history section of that entry, take note of the "doubt point, certitude point, acclamation point, authority point, indignation point, and love point."Scott gets to the bottom of the striking new cover designs on Dalkey Archive Press' books.NPR features an excerpt from Firmin, a Millions favorite (and former LBC pick) that is soon to be published in a new edition by Delta, a Random House imprint.The Association of American Publishers teams with several celebs to create BooksAreGreatGifts.com and accompanying YouTube vid. "Books make great gifts because they are an amazing way to kill time while your web site is buffering." - Jon Stewart. (thanks Laurie)
Tuesday, Big New Release Day
The big, blockbuster book this week is the final installment in the late Stieg Larsson's trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Those just catching on to the Larsson phenomenon can also now get the complete set. Moving on to quirkier fare, there's The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto, a reprint of a 1950s treatise on drinking with a new introduction by Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket). And finally, Library of America is putting out a volume of novels and stories by master of gothic fiction, Shirley Jackson.
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“It was not intended to drive people crazy”
In a piece originally published in a 1913 edition of The Forerunner, Charlotte Perkins Gilman explains why she felt inspired to write "The Yellow Wallpaper."
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Immortal Life IRL
"I became completely obsessed." At the 92nd Street Y, Rebecca Skloot shares the story behind her bestseller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, joined by members of the Lacks family and actress Rose Byrne, who plays Skloot in the forthcoming film adaptation of her book. Skloot also discusses how the subject of the book is intimately linked to her own father's health crisis, which Amy Halloran wrote about in our own pages a few years back.
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