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
Brillante
Is Alejandro Zambra the new great Latin American writer? James Wood thinks he is. In the latest New Yorker, he describes how Zambra’s new story collection alerted him to the writer’s oeuvre, going on to analyze all three of the writer’s novels in English. You could also read our 2011 interview with Zambra.
What’s Wrong with Books?
Jenny Slate and Gabe Liedman explain what’s wrong with books: “They’re heavy…the shit in them is dumb…”
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Edan Lepucki to Help Judge the Tournament of Books
Our own Edan Lepucki will be among the judges for the 2013 Tournament of Books. Yeah here come the rooster, yeah / Which book’s gonna win?
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World of Redundant Forms
Recommended Reading: Over at Electric Literature, Lori Huth writes about Jeanette Winterson and contemporary war metaphor: “I wanted to feel powerful emotions commensurate with the horror of the story behind the images. I wanted to feel bewildered, and to lament, but instead I felt numb.”
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Pricey Pads
A real estate blog has calculated the approximate value of Hogwarts, and you might be surprised to learn that it’s worth only a fraction of a real life abode in Mumbai, and only about three times more than one in Orlando.
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Particularly Piquant Peppers
Move over Naga Viper. There’s a new hottest pepper in town, and it’s called the Carolina Reaper.
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Greatly Exaggerated
Whatever your thoughts on Will Self’s claim that the novel as we know it is dead, it’s important to keep in mind, as Daniel D’Addario helpfully illustrates, that we’ve heard this claim before. At Salon, he goes all the way back to 1902 to trace the legacy of a long-held fear.
Time and Relationships
“When we think of novels, we often think of chunks of time and the action during those periods. But when I think of time, my teenage years particularly, I think of relationships.” Recent Year in Reading alum Darcey Steinke talks with The Rumpus about being a teenage girl, motherlessness, “quiet” books and her new novel, Sister Golden Hair.
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