Among the breadcrumbs doled out in this GQ slideshow/interview with Paris Review editor Lorin Stein is this: John Jeremiah Sullivan helped him write his job application.
GQ Questions Lorin Stein
Women and Criticism
Tonight: “Sharp: A Discussion of Women and Criticism,” a panel at the Housing Works Bookstore in New York featuring writers Kate Bolick, Laura Miller, Michelle Orange, and more. It begins at 7 p.m.; more information can be found here.
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.
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Benefits Does Have a Nicer Ring to It
In its treatment of the poor, Britain may be “going back to the Middle Ages,” says Booker repeat winner Hilary Mantel. Indeed, she explains, “In some respects … Cromwell lived in a more enlightened time.” And she’s not the only high profile UK author to come to the side of government welfare these days. In a two–part interview for The Daily Show, J.K. Rowling notes that she couldn’t have written her first books without government “benefits.”
Two Brilliant Kids
This is an interview in which five-year-old Desmond and eight-year-old Everett ask some hard-hitting questions of M. Quint regarding her new book The Defiant, and in which Jonathan Lethem makes a brief cameo to helpfully facilitate the discussion–do you need any more reason to read this piece? Here’s a quick hit from C. Max Magee, creator of The Millions, on giving the classics to kids.
The Keret House
Etgar Keret is busy these days. Aside from publishing a story about the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and aside from promoting stories for Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading blog, he also has time to commission novelty houses in Warsaw. At 133 cm (or ~4.3 feet) wide, the Keret House is, in my opinion, the stuff of nightmares. (Scroll along the page banner for more pictures.)
Replacement Burrito
Recommended Reading: This moving essay on secrecy, shame, and binging by Michael Sinert over at The Rumpus: “Our task is to de-son-of-a-bitch all this.”
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