Oh, shit: looks like many of our curse words are quickly going extinct. (There is good news, however, contained in this delightful sentence: “Still, according to Sheidlower, f-bomb enthusiasts need not fret too much.”)
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Dear Sandy, Hello
A look at Ted Berrigan‘s letters to his institutionalized wife, collected in Dear Sandy, Hello, at The Poetry Foundation.
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A Double-Shot of Deborah Eisenberg
MacArthur Genius™ Deborah Eisenberg, whom we’ve often celebrated here, publishes her 1,000-page Collected Stories this month – we ardently commend it to your attention. If you’ve read ’em all already, get your Eisenberg fix at the NYRB, where she reviews Dezsõ Kosztolányi‘s “quiet, shattering, perfect” novel Skylark.
OK, this is complicated
Nigella Lawson, British domestic goddess and former book critic, seems to have offended her novelist friend Sophie Waugh in a move reminiscent of the beginnings the hallowed hissy fit between V.S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux.
Not a Magical Pairing
Not caught up on the emerging Hermione/Ron scandal? Here’s a recap: a few days ago, J.K. Rowling not only said in an interview conducted by Emma Watson that she regretted pairing up Harry Potter’s best friends, she also said that Harry and Hermione should have ended up together. “[Pairing Hermione and Ron] was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility,” she said. “Am I breaking people’s hearts by saying this? I hope not.” (This might be a good time to revisit Michelle Dean on the series.)
Celebrity Memoir Overdose
John Harris at Guardian looks at what reading 11 celebrity memoirs in four days will do to your brain.