Broke New York writers – by which we mean, New York writers – take note: the city’s Department of Housing is allotting a small number of $1,022 two-bedroom apartments to working artists through a convenient online application. (If that’s too rich for your blood, though, we’ve also noted previously that Write a House is giving away free houses to writers in Detroit.)
A 2BR/2BA of your Own
Prime Minister, Poet
A rare manuscript dealer has put up for auction a 10 stanza poem written (in crayon!) by Winston Churchill. The poem, entitled “Our Modern Watchwords,” is believed to be the only known poem written by the British prime minister in his adulthood.
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My Shoes Remain On
“The Terminal C Baja Fresh sign gleams like living flame. I feast. The salsa bar is limitless. The refills overflow. I browse John Grisham courthouse thrillers within Hudson Booksellers for 15 minutes… or was it a millennia? Time is a breath to me now.” Jeff Loveness for McSweeney’s is TSA PreCheck, and now he is a God.
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Crunching the Reading Numbers
Some cool number-crunching from Millions staff writer Patrick at the Goodreads blog. As we’ve long suspected, reading isn’t all about “new,” and the data shows a long tail of older books that are still high on people’s reading lists.
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Last of the Mohicans, First of the Republicans
At Salon, Andrew O’Hehir dubs Lincoln “a tremendous accomplishment.” (It probably doesn’t hurt that its director is Steven Spielberg.)
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On Reviewers, and Paying Them
LA Review of Books editor in chief Tom Lutz has written about the future of book reviews and “a missing generation of journalists.”
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How to Treat an “Apocalyptic Hangover”
The second issue of the new journal Music & Literature is a feast for Krasznahorkai enthusiasts and neophytes alike, with some 70 pages of previously untranslated fiction, interviews, and essays, along with critical context on the “Hungarian Master of the Apocalypse.” Alas, only George Szirtes‘ essay and an interview with translator Ottilie Mulzet are available digitally. But the complete analog package is highly recommended.