One of the surprises of last week’s James Beard Awards was the runaway success of McSweeney’s offshoot Lucky Peach, which ended up taking home five out of seventeen awards. On John Birdsall’s Tumblr, you can read one of the winning essays, which bears the attention-grabbing title of “America, Your Food Is So Gay.” (Related: Jessica Ferri on food writing.)
Born Lucky
Your Kahlo and My Kahlo
If you live in London, and you like the idea of a play in which “two women [try] to put on a one-woman play about Frida Kahlo in whom neither of them is really interested,” you should stop by the Bridge House Theatre, which is playing Chris Larner’s The Frida Kahlo of Penge West until November 23rd. At the LRB blog, Rosemary Hill provides a brief review.
Write to Win
Want to win a house? A goat farm? A country bed-and-breakfast? Write an essay.
Smart Money
Colson Whitehead will be playing in next month’s World Series of Poker. He’s writing about it for Grantland, Bill Simmons‘ new ESPN affiliate. He’s also accepting sponsorships.
●
●
The 2016 International Dublin Literary Award Longlist
This morning, the longlist for the 2016 International Dublin Literary Award came out, and the nominees include some familiar names. Year in Reading alumnus Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See (which won this year’s Pulitzer, whom you can learn more about in this essay by our own Michael Bourne) is on there, as is Year in Reading alumnus Michael Cunningham’s The Snow Queen, Year in Reading alumna Roxane Gay’s An Untamed State (reviewed here by Aboubacar Ndiaye), and A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (winner of this year’s Booker Prize).
●
●
Waywords and Meansigns
Recommended listening: Waywords and Meansigns, a new project that’s set out to record Finnegans Wake in its entirety and set it to music. The complete work will be released on May 4th, but there are already a few samples available online.
Billy Pilgrim Is Unstuck
“How can a horrific event, so monstrous it seems incomprehensible, be told? How does one even find the words to write about it?” For The Paris Review, Matteo Pericoli takes a look at Slaughterhouse-Five and the bridge between fiction and architecture.
●
●