“Repressed homosexual yearnings certainly would account for some of the more striking of [Franz] Kafka’s darker preoccupations,” writes John Banville in his investigation of the writer’s personal life and psychology.
“Kafka was a son of Prague to his phthisic fingertips”
Harlequin History
“How did a humble Canadian publisher—which got its start reprinting other companys’ books—become the name most associated with romance? It’s a long story, involving a peripatetic former fur trader and his opinionated socialite wife, a Procter-and-Gamble-trained Harvard MBA, some jilted Americans and a whole crowd of damned scribbling women.” From Pictorial comes the story of “How Harlequin Became the Most Famous Name in Romance.”
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Common Consciousness Changed
“For good or evil, we are a single people: the more we become conscious of this, the less difficult and long will be humanity’s progress towards justice and peace.” The inimitable Primo Levi on the spiritual value of science and its ability to bring people together.
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Catherine Havisham. Earlier.
I could explain to you who Catherine was, or I could let you watch Picador’s book trailer for Ronald Frame’s Havisham and let you find out for yourself. The latter seems like much more fun.
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Two Good Things
USA Today is running an excerpt of Denis Johnson’s much buzzed about new doorstop Tree of Smoke.The New Yorker Food Issue, to my mind the highlight of the New Yorker publishing year, has arrived. Somehow I look forward to this one as much as I did the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue when I was twelve. Much of the good stuff isn’t online, but you can get a taste of the food writing on offer with a series of short essays under theme “Family Dinner.” Aleksandar Hemon, Gary Shteyngart, Nell Freudenberger, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, David Sedaris, Anthony Lane, and Donald Antrim are on the menu.
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Giving J.K. Rowling a Run for Her Rejections
Before Donal Ryan made the Man Booker Prize Longlist, his debut novel, The Spinning Heart, was rejected 47 times until an intern plucked it out of the slush pile. We bet those 47 publishers are smacking themselves on the forehead right now. Pair with: Research has shown that rejection is like physical pain.
At Long Last
The Modern Language Association has finally weighed in on how to cite tweets in academic papers.
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Oylmpics: A Cautionary Tale
Remember, everybody. Running with the Olympic torch is temporary, but a misspelled tattoo is forever.
Magical Journalism
“But where Smiley condescended, others were enthralled. Salmon Rushdie waxed lyrical, John Updike found it ‘stunning,’ Susan Sontag hosted him at dinner parties. Gabriel Garcia Marquez dubbed him, simply, ‘the Master’ – high praise from the founder of magical realism, but Kapuściński seemed to one-up Garcia Marquez by injecting magic into real politics, and elucidating thereby the human tension and bewilderment connected to power that traditional journalism left hidden.” Ryszard Kapuściński: novelist? Journalist? Or something else entirely?
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