Our own Edan Lepucki (who has a novel coming out soon, by the way…) interviewed four of the finalists for this year’s National Book Awards: Tenth of December author George Saunders, The Lowland author Jhumpa Lahiri, The Good Lord Bird author James McBride, and The Flamethrowers author Rachel Kushner. We reviewed both Saunders and Kushner’s works here and here, respectively, and you can also take a look at the rest of the NBA finalists over here.
Edan Lepucki Interviews the NBA Finalists
Dostoevsky’s Fall from Grace
How long did it take Dostoevsky to go from being heralded as the “heir of Gogol” to being denounced as a “bad joke”? 15 days. Apparently he never recovered.
Rumspringa
"Could there be anything better, or worse, than Amish romance novels?" Let's find out.
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“Soccer is inextricably tied to nationalism”
Among Jorge Luis Borges’s observations about soccer were the following: “Soccer is popular because stupidity is popular;” soccer is “aesthetically ugly;” and “soccer is one of England’s biggest crimes.” That is to say: his distaste is well documented. But why did he feel this way? Millions contributor Shaj Mathew takes a look.
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The End of the Gala Era
Peter Osnos on how far the publishing industry has come since the galas and publishing events of the 1990s: "That the action in publishing now is in the creation of books rather than selling the rights to them is a meaningful indicator of the excitement in the industry about the digital potential."
The Klingon Word for Spoon is “baghneQ”
Lapham’s Quarterly has a new podcast about “the weird world of invented languages” such as Klingon, Dothraki, and Esperanto.
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Memories of Home
For NPR, Joyce Carol Oates talks about her childhood home and how it’s influenced her as a person and a writer. Pair with Brittani Sonnenberg’s Millions essay on finding a home as a writer.