Just in time for the new season of Mad Men, The Paris Review unlocked their interview with Matthew Weiner from the new issue. The showrunner talks, among other things, about his father’s love of Swann’s Way and his own adolescent love of Winesburg, Ohio. You could also take a look at our own Hannah Gersen’s list of books to read when the season winds down.
Talking with Matthew Weiner
A Spider of a Writer
Year in Reading alumna Parul Sehgal’s column for The New York Times debuted last week with her reflections on the great Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal. As she puts it, "He is a spider of a writer: subtle and sly, patient, with invisible designs. He never proclaims — he never needs to. He envelops." Pair with John Yargo’s Millions essay on Hrabal’s fiction.
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Words & Symbols
Mairead Small Staid writes on the history and poetics of the ampersand, “a logogram masquerading as a letter, a letter that is also a word—like a and I and even o, but no—a letter that is only a word, the plainest word of all.”
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Jay-Z and Michiko K.: Kindred Spirits
Michiko Kakutani's generous and oddly moving review of Jay-Z's Decoded - in which she seems to find a kindred spirit - almost makes me want to take back all the mean things I've said about her. I still don't trust her judgment, but the review's worth reading just for the mental image of her in big headphones, nodding along to "Streets Is Watching." Go 'head, shorty.
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Russian Love Stories; Russian Persecution
Masha Gessen has been busy of late. Within months of publishing her investigative look at the charges for Russian punk band, Pussy Riot, Gessen has also co-edited a book entitled Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories. Over at The Independent, you can check out a review of the two projects, and over at Guernica, you can read an interview in which Gessen discusses both works.
Kazuo Ishiguro To Publish First Novel in Ten Years
Next March, Kazuo Ishiguro will publish his first novel since Never Let Me Go. The new book, entitled The Buried Giant, is said to be about "lost memories, love, revenge and war.”
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