Not every Craigslist ad is noteworthy, but this property listing, titled “Gorgeous Rural Mountain Acreage” and hailing from Kentucky, is a notable (and sobering) exception. Full-Stop republished the whole thing, which includes warnings that “bears are known to be about” and “beautiful water seeps.”
“A history of fire flooding and water flooding”
Ferrante Furor
In case you missed it, this past weekend The New York Review of Books likely outed the author who’s been writing under the nom de plume of Elena Ferrante. Condemnation was fast and furious, including pieces by n+1 and this fantastic Twitter thread by critic Lili Loofbourow. We join the chorus of voices who would rather direct the attention back to Ferrante’s work. Might we suggest starting with this piece about The Neapolitan Quartet‘s subversive power?
Which Wilder?
We’ve written about the newly published Laura Ingalls Wilder memoir several times, but a new review in the LA Times calls attention to one of the most interesting questions raised by the work: how much influence did Wilder’s daughter Rose Wilder Lane, an accomplished author in her own right, have on the final Little House books?
●
●
Wednesday Links
I’ve been meaning to link to Ed’s review of Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story in the Philly Inquirer. Jenny finds that not everyone agrees with Ed. Previously: King tells the Paris Review the he sees Lisey’s Story as a “special book.”Why Levi won’t be reading Thomas Pynchon’s new book Against the Day. Michael, meanwhile, already has his copy.Former book columnist at the Dallas Morning News Jerome Weeks has started a blog, book/daddy. Weeks took a buyout from his paper and has been vocal about the downsizing of cultural coverage in newspapers. See Weeks’ comment on a recent post on this topic.Assigned reading too hard for schoolkids say experts.Google recently subpoenaed a number of companies – Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo and publishers Random House, Holtzbrinck, and HarperCollins – to collect evidence that will back its side in the copyright case against Google Books being brought by authors and publishers. Now, Amazon has rejected Google’s request, and the other companies are expected to follow suit.
New Helen DeWitt
Millions fave Helen DeWitt’s new novel Lightning Rods now has a cover and is available for pre-order. Look for it in October.
Short Stories for your Kindle
Torpedo, the beautifully designed and illustrated Australian fiction quarterly that has featured Jim Shepard, Sheila Heti, Clancy Martin, and yours truly, now becomes the first of its kind to be fully Kindled. Copies are $2.99 here.
●
●
Nominating the Wrong Book
Well, this is awkward. When the National Book Foundation announced its nominees last week for the Young People’s Literature category of the National Book Awards, they accidentally picked a book called Shine by Lauren Myracle when they really meant to pick Franny Billingsley’s Chime.
Miss Whatsit
Director Ava Duvernay has found the lead for her film adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time. Thirteen-year-old Storm Reid will play the lead role of the character Meg Murry, joining a cast that includes Mindy Kaling, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon.
●
●
Are Books Clutter?
When Marie Kondo's Netflix show came out, Hannah McGregor writes for Electric Literature, "the Internet suddenly had a lot of opinions about clutter."
●
●
●