Recommended Reading: Jessica Contrera’s mesmerizing account of a shuttered Waffle House in Bloomington, Indiana. I promise you. This is worth your time.
Bud Powell Says “Goodbye”
Tuesday New Release Day: McCarthy, Phillips, Turow, Geni, Catton
Vintage International released Cormac McCarthy’s screenplay for The Counselor, the new Ridley Scott film which our own Nick Moran wrote about on Saturday. Also out: Quiet Dell by Jayne Anne Phillips; Identical by Scott Turow; The Last Animal by Abby Geni and The Luminaries by Booker Prize shortlister Eleanor Catton, which Martha Anne Toll reviewed for us on Monday. (For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-half 2013 Book Preview.)
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True Romance
We might mock romance readers for how much Kleenex they go through, but they’re more emotionally perceptive than others. A new study on the interpersonal sensitivity of readers found that romance readers are better at discerning facial cues and emotion than other literati. But don’t worry if you aren’t a Nicholas Sparks fan; reading any genre makes you more empathetic, as we’ve reported on before.
Meet Miss Simone
Meet Eunice Waymon, who Nina Simone was before she became Nina Simone. John Lahr reviews What Happened, Miss Simone? by Alan Light. Pair with Bill Morris’s piece on the Hollywood biopic.
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The Character of the Characters
Graphic designer Matthew Olin sculpts eight superheros out of letters in imagining the personalities of different fonts. Sadly, he leaves us wondering how one would personify our old pal Comic Sans.
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The United States of Newspapers
American Short Fiction’s managing editor Jess Stoner is reading local newspapers from one state a week and reporting on the big headlines in a better attempt to understand America. As she puts it, “Not to snark, not to make fun of people from unincorporated towns who write letters to the editor, but to share with you a more complicated, less yell-y look at where we are, with the hopes of better understanding where we might be headed.” The first state is Alabama.
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Abandon All Carts
If you’ve read the Inferno, you’ve journeyed with Dante and Virgil to the ninth circle of Hell. At McSweeney’s, you can go grocery shopping with them. “Abandon all carts, ye who enter here.”
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Reading by Halves
Over at Electric Literature, Lincoln Michel wonders “What’s Wrong with Only Reading Half a Book?” Pair with our own Sonya Chung‘s essay on her list of unfinished reads and the art of “breaking up with books.”
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Was just reading this article and musing about its relation to some of the comments on the Millions’ recent article on “John The Posthumous” by Jason Schwartz. The Millions comments raised some interesting questions about complex and simple style.
When I think about a complex, intricately detailed writing style, it bring to mind “My Name Is Red” by Orhan Pamuk. The style is such a perfect match for the setting – the 16th-century Ottoman Empire, and the lead character – a master miniaturist and illuminator of books. The novel is stuffed full of exotic tidbits -figurative art and Islam, tricky marital law issues, weird fantasies. I loved the novel and now pine to visit Istanbul.
In contrast, Ms. Contrera’s story is built up of deceptively simple observations, in a plain “Midwestern” style, that coalesce to creative a massive emotional impact. The style made me think of flat Indiana roads and sunshine.
I loved both pieces, and found the choice of style perfect for the story told. As my buddy Randy at the Y security desk says regularly, “It’s all good!”
Beautiful piece. Visits to that Waffle House were a cornerstone of my 4 years in Bloomington.