Recommended Reading: Joseph Fasano’s “Coda,” which is The Missouri Review’s poem of the week. “Now he is listening for beginning./Now he is lying/among that sinew,/asking, as a boy would, where his song goes.”
Earth’s Song
Villain’s Law
Over the weekend, Canada’s National Post ran a book review by our own Michael Bourne, who contributed a piece on Bright Lights, Big City this week. In the review, Michael reads Thomas King’s The Back of the Turtle, which he says reaffirms the rule that bad guys are always more interesting.
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A Radical Vision
Recommended reading: this brilliant and thorough profile of Toni Morrison from the New York Times Magazine, complete with a video of Morrison reading from her upcoming novel, God Help the Child.
A Big New Release Tuesday
Lots of anticipated books hitting shelves today. At the top of the list is Michael Lewis’s look at the recent financial calamity, The Big Short. Also new today, Chang Rae Lee’s The Surrendered, Ron Rash’s story collection Burning Bright, Lionel Shriver’s So Much for That, and James Hynes’ Next, about which we have noted some intriguing Twitter buzz. New in paperback are Victor LaValle’s The Big Machine and Dave Eggers’ The Wild Things.
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Know The Rules Before You Break Them
Point: Dan Chaon believes younger writers should read more contemporary writing before attempting to be published themselves. Counterpoint: J. Robert Lennon believes most contemporary writing is a waste of would-be writers’ precious time. TL;DR Version: Nathan Elwood notes that if writers “want to change the face of literary fiction … [they should] at least know what it looks like.”
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Custom Litographs
Litographs is a Massachusetts-based company that uses literature as inspiration for their designs. The text becomes the basis for the design. (Check out this example for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.) They’re launching a new Kickstarter campaign on Tuesday in which you can make a custom Litograph with whatever text you want. Pretty cool, right?
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The Mad and Feral Works of Shirley Jackson
Emily Alford on the hazards of loneliness seen in Shirley Jackson's books and the ways recent film adaptations have missed the mark.
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“We call it Book”
Old but still as timely as ever: The latest and greatest in cutting-edge reading technology from Penny Arcade.
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