Recommended Reading: Roger Angell describes life in the nineties. His nineties.
“Here’s to you, old dears. You got this right, every one of you.”
The Second Pass Interviewed
On the occasion of its first anniversary, The Second Pass founder John Williams gets interviewed by VQR. “I realize I’m not making a convincing case for the Luddite thing. You’ll just have to trust me.”
Mutually Exclusive
Diehard fans of Herzog, Dangling Man and other great books by Saul Bellow will be interested to learn that the author, as revealed in a new memoir by his son, once asked himself the following question: “Was I a man or a jerk?”
●
●
Jumping Ship
How do you explain the recent “shit storm” at Granta? Let Full-Stop EIC Alex Shephard do it for you.
●
●
They’re Burning Books
in the film version of Fahrenheit 451. In the New York Times this week the director Ramin Bahrani talks about his love of books, how he decided which books to turn in the film and why he wanted to bring this novel to the small screen in the first place. It will air on HBO next Saturday (May 19th).
My Ears! My Ears!
In a move that could scar you for life, Gilbert Gottfried reads selected passages (Very NSFW!) from E L James’ breakout book Fifty Shades of Grey.
●
●
Grand Officier Yaşar Bey
●
●
Felt Succeeds Where Words Fail
Spike Jonze and Olympia Le-Tan collaborate on a short, creepy, bookish sex romp, animated in felt and set in Shakespeare and Company. Via The Dish.
●
●
RIP John Ashbery
The New York Times is reporting that the poet John Ashbery has died. A major figure in American letters, Ashbery won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in a single year for his book Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. The full Times obituary has more.