Sometimes, when you read a lot of work by a single writer, you end up writing unconscious imitations of their work. The reliability of this effect raises an ourobouric possibility: what if you reviewed a writer’s fiction in their own style? At The Awl, Sarah Marian Seltzer reviews Henry James as Henry James. You could also read Charles-Adam Foster-Simard on binge-reading James’s fiction.
Prodigious by Design
100 Days that Changed Canada
Denise Donlon writes on the day MuchMusic rocked the tube. Peter Mansbridge details when baseball player Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. And Conrad Black outlines a train trip by Canada’s first prime minister. Those are but a few of the essays by well-known Canadian personalities in the new book 100 Days That Changed Canada (HarperCollins Canada), now in stores.
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What Bloggers Owe Montaigne
At the Paris Review Daily, a post on what bloggers owe Montaigne: “There seems no end to the appeal of the essayist’s basic idea: that you can write spontaneously and ramblingly about yourself and your interests, and that the world will love you for it.” (via Book Bench)
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The Right Side of History
“I write, always thinking about the generations of black women who came before me, who faced racism and sexism head-on, and in spite of it all, did their work. They encourage me not to despair.” For Vogue, author Brit Bennett writes about 2017, racism, Trump, and the forward progression of time. Pair with: staff writer Ismail Muhammad‘s interview with Bennett.
His Gift for Matching Books to Reviewers Was Uncanny
“He was surely the greatest literary editor there has ever been – brilliant, autocratic, endlessly curious and possessed of an extraordinary fund of knowledge about a vast range of subjects. True, he was not always easy to deal with, but when has the best ever been easy?” John Banville on the late Robert Silvers.
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“I feel very honoured, even if I can’t help thinking I must be a fraud”
If Nicholas Wroe’s profile of Javier Marías doesn’t get you excited to read the Spanish novelist’s work, then maybe Hari Kunzru’s Year In Reading entry from this past year will do the trick.
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