Recommended Reading: People Who Eat Darkness author Richard Lloyd Parry’s stunning essay on Reverend Kaneda, a Japanese monk performing exorcisms to solve his region’s “ghost problem.”
“In such circumstances, how could there fail to be a swarm of ghosts?”
Jesmyn Ward Two-fer
Electric Literature’s posted a story by Jesmyn Ward, author of the reigning National Book Award-winning novel Salvage the Bones, as part of their ongoing Recommended Reading series. It’s worth checking out. Likewise, I recommend getting your hands on the latest issue of Oxford American so you can check out Ward’s inaugural “Native Daughter” column.
R.I.P. Denis Dutton, Founder of A&L Daily
Denis Dutton, founding editor of the esteemed web digest Arts & Letters Daily, passed away today at age 66 after a battle with prostate cancer. We echo the sentiments of Three Quarks Daily that Dutton's site "set the gold standard that we have aspired to match in our own curating of slightly different intellectual content on the web."
Extremely Patient and Incredibly Careful
It looks like Jonathan Safran Foer will be publishing his first novel in eleven years next fall. The book, tentatively titled Here I Am, is the story of an American Jewish family, set against a background of traumatic events in the Middle East including earthquakes and an invasion of Israel. Foer’s last novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, enjoyed tremendous critical and commercial success. Here’s a piece on JSF’s crazy, confusing, die-cut book Tree of Codes.
●
●
Big Money Books
Online used book marketplace AbeBooks has released its list of the top ten most expensive sales on the site in 2010. A rare and very old Arabic manuscript is in the top slot. Herman Melville also makes a couple of appearances.
●
●
Migraine Memories
Writer and illustrator Allyson Hoffman reflects on how chronic illness impacts daily life and memory.
●
●
The Princess and the Pedlar
Recently rediscovered: a comic libretto by Raymond Chandler titled "The Princess and the Pedlar."
●
●