At the LRB’s blog, J. Robert Lennon pays tribute to Russell Edson, the playwright, novelist and prose poet who passed away last week. Lennon recounts that Edson was that rare favorite author who he learned about thanks to a cassette tape. (If you like the blog post, you could also read Lennon’s most recent novel.)
Overheard
Useable Objects
Recommended Reading: This piece from The Atlantic on Marie Kondo and the “privilege of clutter.” While you’re at it, go and read our own Janet Potter’s experience with Kondo’s wildly popular The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
Who Reviews the Reviewers?
Our own Lydia Kiesling discusses James Wood’s literary “lodestars,” and also looks at “what is fascinating, if not exactly fun” about The Fun Stuff, the critic’s latest essay collection.
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2018 Tournament of Books Winner Announced
After 16 fierce book brackets, The Morning News’ Tournament of Books championship round pitted Samanta Schweblin‘s Fever Dream against George Saunders‘ Lincoln in the Bardo. Did your pick win? Click here to find out.
Au Contraire!
“It’s not easy to choose only five books, so I made up my mind and decided to mention the five I can’t help reading again, once in a while, because they are still here for me today.” Here’s a list of five necessary French books that you should be reading, including works by Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Marguerite Duras.
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Time Out of Mind
Are we now living in a golden age of the uncanny? The Millions contributor Porochista Khakpour suspects that we are, and she also suspects that our historical moment, populated as it is with alienating developments and surreal art, is key to understanding the work of Helen Oyeyemi. In the Times, Khakpour reviews Oyeyemi’s new novel. (You could also read both writers’ Year in Reading pieces.)
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Less than Horrible
In the latest edition of By the Book, Neil Patrick Harris explains his love of Gone Girl, Steve Martin, and John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. We’ve written about the series in the past — you might want to look back on the entries by Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Colson Whitehead.
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“Gallop[ing] terribly”
We’re nearing the halfway point in football season (have you done your reading?), so that means it’s time to revisit one of the finest poems ever written about the game: James Wright’s “Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio.”