At Full-Stop, Nicholson Baker talks with David Burr Gerard about his new novel, Henry James and the envy he feels for Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald. (Related: our own Bill Morris reviewed Baker’s House of Holes.)
“Vague enough to be useful”
Against Capital Punishment
Interview with Don DeLillo
Robert McCrum at Guardian scores a rare interview with Don DeLillo on his most recent novel, Point Omega, and the process of exploring America through fiction.
Poets and Tomatoes
“We are hermits, that is true. We live in tiny rooms, and we stay in those rooms hours upon hours every day, every month, every year. But we also like to walk around and throw ourselves into big crates of tomatoes, and roll around in them, and then get up all tomato-stained.” Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera talks about living life as a poet (which apparently includes a lot of tomatoes) in an interview with the Guardian.
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Poet Zero
When you’re trying to keep up with the best new writers out there, it’s easy to forget the debt we owe to the classics. So let’s go back to the beginning: Why Homer Matters, a new book by Adam Nicholson on the father of all poets, explores the question of who Homer was, and whether or not he was even one person. You could also read Frank Kovarik on the parallels between The Odyssey and Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
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Where Have You Been
Recommended Reading: Mark L. Keats explores “international adoption as resettlement.”
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A Poet’s Debut
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No Exit
As Der Spiegel bluntly puts it, when Jean-Paul Sartre met up with the head of the RAF, a German terrorist group, he tried to use his powers “to persuade them to stop murdering people.”