Remember when Little Red Riding Hood was eaten by a hyena? Wait, that’s not the folktale we know. Whether or not Little Red Riding Hood gets eaten depends on where you hear the famous folktale, but anthropologist Jamie Tehrani discovered the origins of the scarlet-hooded girl — Belgium.
The Belgian Big Bad Wolf
Submission Alert!
Heads up, writerly types! Dzanc Books is looking for submissions for their newly-announced 2016 Prize for Fiction. Judges Carmiel Banasky, Kim Church, and Andrew F. Sullivan will determine the winner, who is slated to receive publication and a not-so-insignificant $10,000 prize. Go get published.
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Bookstore Tour Fun
An indie bookstore fan uses our bookstore tour as a jumping-off point for a literary day in Manhattan. You can too.
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William Kelley, a Lost Literary Giant
“I didn’t know who William Kelley was when I found that book but, like millions of Americans, I knew a term he is credited with first committing to print. ‘If You’re Woke, You Dig It’ read the headline of a 1962 Op-Ed that Kelley published in the New York Times, in which he pointed out that much of what passed for “beatnik” slang (“dig,” “chick,” “cool”) originated with African-Americans.” Are you familiar with William Kelley? Let Kathryn Schulz be your guide on this historical literary adventure as she discovers an immensely influential writer whom most of us have never heard mentioned.
The Rumpus Redesign
Everyone’s favorite scrappy San Fransisco literary web site, The Rumpus, has relaunched with a major redesign. Go over and poke around why don’t you? If you’re looking for a place to start, why not Roxane Gay’s recent essay on the New York Times Book Review section’s dismal numbers when it comes to reviewing books written by people of color?
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The Relevance of Plasma
The vigilant excavators at Longform have dug up a fairly old piece, written by the essayist Jo Ann Beard, on a time in her life taken up by cagey dogs, vanishing husbands and the plasma in Saturn’s rings.
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Zooey Deschanel on New Girl
Every Wednesday, Vanity Fair bloggers dissect Zooey Deschanel’s performance on New Girl and quantify each quirk as “adorkable” or “tweepulsive.”
Tuesday New Release Day: Sweeney; Simonson; Mahajan; Feldman; Barrett; Strong
Out this week: The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney; The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson; The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan; Terrible Virtue by Ellen Feldman; Rush Oh! by Shirley Barrett; and Hold Still by Lynn Steger Strong. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great 2016 Book Preview.
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