Terrible sex writing spans the globe according to this year’s Bad Sex Award shortlist. It includes: My Education by Susan Choi, The Last Banquet by Jonathan Grimwood, House of Earth by Woody Guthrie, Motherland by William Nicholson, The Victoria System by Eric Reinhardt, The World Was All Before Them by Matthew Reynolds, The City of Devi by Manil Suri, and Secrecy by Rupert Thomson. The winner will be announced on December 3.
Keep It in Your Pants and out of the Plot
Literary Icons Interview Each Other
Year in Reading alum Margaret Atwood interviews Louise Erdrich. They discuss Canada, reproductive rights, their hopes for the future and writing messy characters in a dystopia. Find it in Elle.
An Anonymous Evangelical Poetry Fan
In what might be the first sighting of its kind, an anonymous evangelical poetry fan has made an appearance in the comments of Elizabeth Lucy Conway’s recent essay on teaching poetry.
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Details are vague
China Miéville on apocalyptic London for The New York Times Magazine: “Standing so straight on a raised dais, in so immaculate a uniform that he looks like a ventriloquist’s dummy, the Metropolitan Police Service’s new commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, tells the conference in an avuncular voice about his plan for ‘total policing. ‘ He is enthusiastic but nebulous. Details are vague.”
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Street Cred
Recommended Reading: Jody Rosen on Ashley and JaQuavis Coleman.
Traveling with Orhan Pamuk
Want to see the real Istanbul? Take a tour with the ultimate guide, Orhan Pamuk. The author showed The New York Times’s Joshua Hammer around the city. Pair with: Our review of The Museum of Innocence and our essay on his politics.
Cheering Up the Country
Recommended Reading: Booker Prize winner Anne Enright on Donal Ryan’s The Thing About December.
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Pricey Pads
A real estate blog has calculated the approximate value of Hogwarts, and you might be surprised to learn that it’s worth only a fraction of a real life abode in Mumbai, and only about three times more than one in Orlando.
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