You may have heard that Alice Munro couldn’t make it to Sweden to accept this year’s Nobel prize. Instead, she made a video, which you can watch in full on the Nobel Prize committee’s website. (You could also read Ben Dolnick’s beginner’s guide to her work, or else read my essay on the meaning of her win.) (h/t The Paris Review)
Watching Alice Munro
Xerxes, Xystus, and Xanthippe
What did the letter X stand for before xylophones and x-rays? Past examples include historical figures, plants, and animals, all mostly of a Greek bent.
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Vactioning with the Fitzgeralds
Want to wean yourself off gin, recover from tuberculosis, and work on your novel? Don’t go to Asheville, North Carolina. NPR reports that F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda spent two tumultuous summers in the town, where Zelda was in a psychiatric hospital and Scott was suicidal. For more on the unhappy life of Zelda, read our review of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald.
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A Song of Ice and Input
Tired of waiting for George R. R. Martin to finish his next Game of Thrones novel, a software engineer has developed a neural network to write the book instead (via The Digital Reader). Pair with this consideration of how the HBO series is going off-book and breaking all the rules.
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2012 Costa Book Award Winners Announced
The 2012 Costa Book Awards (PDF), which recognize books by writers in the UK and Ireland, were awarded yesterday in the Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book categories. Interestingly, each category was won by a female author. Three cheers for Hilary Mantel’s Bring up the Bodies, Francesa Segal’s The Innocents, Mary M. Talbot’s Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes, Kathleen Jamie’s Overhaul, Sally Gardner’s Maggot Moon.
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Henry Miller: Asleep and Awake
The documentary about Tropic of Cancer author Henry Miller, Asleep and Awake (NSFW), was filmed almost entirely in Mr. Miller’s bathroom. The filmmakers, according to the folks at Open Culture, “use[d] these bathroom walls as a gateway into his mind.”
Love Par Avion
Paravion Press, a small press born in a small Greek island’s bookshop, print postcard-sized editions of short stories that are designed to be sent by mail, complete with a page for your correspondence and an envelope. To celebrate their Valentine’s publication of Katherine Mansfield’s “Feuille d’Album,” they’re holding a Romantic Haiku Challenge, whose winner will receive a free copy.
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Desire and Freedom
Recommended Reading: Can desire thrive without freedom? On the works of Margaret Atwood and Michel Houellebecq in The Atlantic. Our essay on Atwood’s vision of the future and review of Ben Jeffery’s Anti-Matter: Michel Houellebecq and Depressive Realism pair nicely.
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