Want to see the real Istanbul? Take a tour with the ultimate guide, Orhan Pamuk. The author showed The New York Times’s Joshua Hammer around the city. Pair with: Our review of The Museum of Innocence and our essay on his politics.
Traveling with Orhan Pamuk
Protesting Orson Scott Card
With the Ender’s Game movie approaching, critics of Orson Scott Card are drawing attention to the writer’s anti-gay rhetoric. In protest of his position, they compelled DC Comics to scrap a Card-penned Superman comic and started a movement to boycott the upcoming movie. In New York Magazine, Kyle Buchanan runs through the nitty-gritty of the controversy, which includes a recent statement from Card that the repeal of DOMA means “the gay marriage issue” is now “moot.” (You might also want to read our interview with Card from back in May.)
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Give Me a Break
It's Labor Day weekend, a perfect time relax and center yourself after a particularly boring work week. What better way than with this helpful (and hilarious) collection of stress-relieving adult-coloring-book pages of things that stress you out, including everything from Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston’s "super aggro press tour" to awkward conversations on the subway.
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Pictorial Gateways
What is the best approach for creating a book cover? Over at Capatult, Tanwi Nandini Islam considers the best book cover for her debut novel, Bright Lines. Also check out this comparison of U.S. and U.K. book covers.
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Leave the Room Buried
Recommended Reading: Robert Macfarlane at The Guardian on what it means to be living in the Anthropocene age–in which human influence on the planet is permanent and profound–and how our writers and artists are responding to the crisis.
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HTMLGiant’s ToBS
If you're looking for an occasionally evil but mostly hysterical month-long diversion, I recommend following HTMLGiant's "Tournament of Bookshit". So far one highlight has been: "excessively long list of credits including pushcart nominations in your bio vs. the guy who goes 20 minutes over the suggested reading time"
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Transitions
In the latest issue of The Walrus, Casey Plett reads a number of books involving transgender people, critiquing several aspects of their depictions. Along with the essay, she provides a list of transgender novels everyone should read, including Nevada by Imogen Binnie and Wanting in Arabic by Trish Salah.
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Anger is a Good Sauce
This article on M.F.K. Fisher, the godmother of American food writing, should be catnip for those of you who like reading about food almost as much as eating it. A onetime French expat, Fisher conducted “a one-woman revolution in the field of literary cookery,” most notably with her collection of essays The Gastronomical Me. (Back in 2010, Jessica Ferri wrote about Fisher for The Millions.)
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