Avril Haines, the new deputy director of the CIA, had an interesting career before landing in the Langley. According to a Washington Post report, Haines used to own an independent bookstore in Baltimore, where she “welcomed patrons for the occasional readings of high-toned erotica over chicken tostadas.”
The Bookseller Turned Spy
Own a Piece of Paradise
“He was known to step out for cigarette breaks onto a narrow ledge beyond the bedroom windows. Attached to the wall next to a door is a brass speaking tube that he used to call down for lunch.” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby house on Long Island sold for $3 million earlier this year, but you can still own a piece of him: The Washington Post reports that the four-bedroom Victorian in Minnesota where he penned the manuscript This Side of Paradise is currently listed at $625,000.
The Space In-between the Appalachians
Maybe you’ve been enjoying Crapalachia (Excerpt) as much as everybody else these days – or perhaps you’re just a big fan of the Appalachians (and hopefully not MTV’s Buckwild). Either way, you should get a kick out of Scott Hubener’s The Space In-between project. The photography series “documents the landscape and residents along U.S. Route 23, between Asheville, North Carolina, and Johnson City, Tennessee.”
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Sainthood Etc.
Need something to complement our profile of Jami Attenberg’s Saint Mazie today? Then try this on for size: Year in Reading alum Emily Gould conducts an interview with the author at The Rumpus. Among other things, they talk about historical fiction, writing quickly and doing research on the Lower East Side.
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Deal on the Rattling Wall
With past contributions by Joyce Carol Oates, Yusef Komunyakaa and Dana Goodyear, The Rattling Wall (which gets funding from PEN Center USA) appears to have no problem attracting prominent writers. For a limited time, get a three-year subscription at a discount of close to fifty percent.
For the Sake of Cohesion
“Setting is often the last piece of the jigsaw. I start somewhere else—with a kind of a premise, a set of relationships, a theme—and I often have a long period when I can’t figure out where the story should be put down. I find myself going location hunting. Not just for a time and place, but also for a genre, if you like.” Kazuo Ishiguro on the Hazlitt podcast. For more things Ishiguro, here is our own Lydia Kiesling’s review of Ishiguro’s latest novel, The Buried Giant.
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been
Sci-fi writers are partly judged on how well they can predict where society is headed. There’s a reason that books with uncannily accurate forecasts of the future capture our interest long after their release. At Salon, William Gibson admits one way in which he got things wrong: he didn’t foresee the rise of social media. You could also read our own Bill Morris on Gibson’s Zero History.
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