Looking for a way to spice up your short story? Add a ghost. “This is going to sound strange, but what your story really needs is a ghost,” Lorrie Moore said in an interview with The New York Times. She discussed her new professorship at Vanderbilt and her new short story collection, Bark, which, yes, does contain a ghost story.
Scary Stories with Lorrie Moore
Unhappy Birthday to White Noise
What’s with the Don DeLillo pile-on? The folks at Slate post a long audio conversation about White Noise, with one participant calling the novel “flagrantly bad.” I disagree…but then, I kind of liked Point Omega, too.
●
●
The Oyster Review
The e-book subscription service Oyster has recently launched The Oyster Review, and we have reason to be excited: the first issue names our own Emily St. James Mandel‘s Last Night in Montreal “The Book of the Week” and features a look at the novel written by former Millions intern Rachel Hurn.
●
●
A Conversation With Phillip Roth
Welles and Wells
Orson Welles and H.G. Wells talk to one another, and now you can listen thanks to the magic of YouTube. (via)
TimesMachine
New York Times has a cool feature I was unaware of, letting you browse issues from 1851-1922 in all their original grandeur. Articles are also available for download as PDFs.
●
●
Pickwick Posts
Joshua Cohen, author of the recently published Book of Numbers, will begin writing a serialized, twentieth-century version of Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers live and online next week. Beginning October 12 at 1pm, viewers can watch Cohen spend five days reimagining the book and will be able to offer criticism that may affect the ending.
●
●
Tuesday New Release Day: Davis; Tillman; Matthiessen; Sharma; Neuman; Lazar; Keegan; Doyle; Graedon; Begley
Out this week: Can’t and Won’t by Lydia Davis; What Would Lynne Tillman Do by Lynne Tillman; In Paradise by the late Peter Matthiessen; Family Life by Akhil Sharma; Talking to Ourselves by Andrés Neuman; I Pity the Poor Immigrant by Zachary Lazar; The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan; The Plover by Adam Doyle; The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon; and a new biography of John Updike by Adam Begley.
●
●