RIP Elmore Leonard, who passed away this morning at his home in Michigan at the age of 87. Our own Bill Morris got to the heart of what made Leonard a special writer in his 2010 piece about the prolific crime novelist.
RIP Elmore Leonard
People were not invited–they went there.
The mansion that inspired The Great Gatsby‘s West Egg has been privately sold, after sitting on the market for two years.
●
●
Wolfe Goes Back to Wall Street
“We find ourselves in a swarm of fellow starstruck souls outside the Sheraton Hotel on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, churning, squirming.” 25 years after the publication of Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe returns to the subject of Wall Street. You can also check out my review of his most recent novel, Back to Blood, over here.
●
●
What Is Camp?
You may have watched the Met Gala this week with a mix of horror, fascination, and one nudging complaint: That's not camp!
●
●
●
Thinking Through Texts with Anuk Arudpragasam
Anuk Arudpragasam discusses his novel, A Passage North, and how he relates to the reading habits of his main character, Krishan.
●
●
●
Curiosities
Sam Sacks offers up a review of Booker winner The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga for Open Letters“Obama spotted carrying poetry book” – It was Collected Poems 1948-1984 by Derek WalcottThe amazing, exhaustive, 7-part, behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 campaign from NewsweekRahm, Ari, Zeke: Which Emmanuel brother are you?In case you weren’t already tired of this… the n+1 vs. the lit-blogs row of early 2007 lands in an academic journal. Our own contribution to the saga is duly noted.Wyatt Mason offers more thoughts on John Leonard (via Conversational Reading)Malcolm Gladwell’s latest, The Outliers, hits stores a week from today. Gladwell introduces the book in a video at Amazon (scroll down a bit).Oxford researchers figure out the ten most annoying phrases.And the New Oxford American Dictionary has named its Word of the Year: hypermiling.As we remember Michael Crichton, “The Top 5 ‘Crazy’ Michael Crichton Ideas That Actually Came True“Nam Le wins the Dylan Thomas Prize. We interviewed him in August.
●
●
“Banned Books Through History”
This week in book-related infographics: A look at “Banned Books Through History.”