How do you make the jump from editing a food magazine to writing novels? It’s a tricky change to make, but Ruth Reichl did it, as she explains to Marnie Hanel in an interview in the Times. (Her first novel came out last week.)
Tastemaker
The Present Tense
Recommended Reading: This fantastic new story from The London Review of Books by Hilary Mantel, winner of two Booker Prizes. Here’s an interview with Mantel from The Millions on character assassination and dealing with the haters.
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Answering Ophelia
Recommended Reading: Almost a century ago, two students at Oxford wrote back to Ophelia: “Ophelia racked with phantasy, / And Sigismunda, sick with rue — / Ladies, why did ye choose to die / When all the world was made for you?” Find out more about the poets Doreen Wallace and Eleanore Geach at The Toast. We recently wrote about why authors continually turn to Shakespeare.
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Pynchon Possessed by the Spirit of a Teenaged Girl
“Though female authors write experimental novels about women—like Renata Adler’s Speedboat or Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be?—the avant-garde has long been associated with male authors and stories. That association made Alexandra Kleeman’s You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine seem doubly unusual.” On Kleeman’s debut novel and blatantly feminine themes in the avant-garde.
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A Taste of Saudade
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The Verdict Is In!
Hurry over to the Tournament of Books to see whether Open City or The Sisters Brothers was this year’s big winner!
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Nouveau Riche
“When Michael reads in one of the society columns that are hilariously reprinted here, misspellings and all, that Astrid’s jewels aren’t blingy enough, he flies into a fury of inadequacy. This leads him to try to buy one of Singapore’s rarest architectural masterpieces and turn its ground floor into a museum for his car collection, which includes a car from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off; fortunately, his offer is turned down.” On Kevin Kwan’s China Rich Girlfriend.
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