“Today I ate my shame, regurgitated it as a self-disgust, and digested it again as indolence. Known in the physical world as udon noodles with shrimp tempura,” Teddy Wayne told VICE. He and other writers (including our own Emily St. John Mandel) were profiled on what they eat for lunch. On the side: famous writers’ favorite snacks (Lord Byron liked to drink vinegar.)
Lunch Break
There Are Worse Destinations
Bad news: due to the changing climate and rising sea levels, all 103,000 inhabitants of Kiribati have to permanently evacuate their homes. Good news: they may all get to move to Fiji.
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True Crime, True Empathy
Why are women the primary consumers of true crime literature while an overwhelming majority of the genre showcases violence towards women? Over at Hazlitt, Casey Johnston has a few ideas about this seemingly irreconcilable paradox. Here is a complementary piece by Ujala Sehgal for The Millions on the female True Detectives of literature.
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Wednesday New Release Day: Campbell, Meidav, Black, Robinson
Our humongous second-half preview will keep you busy planning your to-read list for the rest of the year, but there are some intriguing new books out this week too. Bonnie Jo Campbell’s novel Once Upon a River is now out, as is Edie Meidav’s Lola, California. (Don’t miss the remarkable essay Meidav wrote for us recently.) Also new is the latest from Benjamin Black (John Banville’s pen name), A Death in Summer, and Flip Flop Fly Ball, a collection of light-hearted and very clever baseball infographics from Craig Robinson (whose work also appears on his blog).
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A Salinger Candid
Newsweek unearthed a heretofore unseen candid snapshot of J.D. Salinger “three years into the seclusion that would span the last 45 years of his life.” (Thanks, Chris)