Recommended reading: What do you get the guy you can’t get anything else–the one with his own oil-rich country–like the Emir of Qatar? The LA Review recommends starting with the World Cup.
An Autocrat’s Guide to World Cup Qualification
“Life was not cake.”
Melville House has one of the short stories from Tao Lin’s Bed up for your noontime reading pleasure.
●
●
Iowa’s Free Online Poetry Workshop
A new MOOC from the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program is scheduled to begin on June 28. “How Writers Write Poetry” is free and open to the public, and it will feature craft talks from poets such as Robert Hass and Kwame Dawes. A fiction-writing course is also scheduled for September. (Related: Read how several Iowa MFA students describe a typical day in the program.)
Join David Bowie’s Book Club
David Bowie was quite the avid reader. In his honor, his son, Duncan Jones, has launched an online book club that will focus on books Bowie enjoyed. The first book is Hawksmoor and the discussion is on February 1st. Will you be participating?
Political Lit
Patrice Hutton writes on Obama, Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, and politics at Ploughshares. You could also read Alex Engebretson’s thoughts on Robinson’s singular vision.
●
●
Tuesday New Release Day: Cronin, Danielewski, Aira, Jacobson, Bowden
Among this week’s new books we have The Twelve by Justin Cronin (our review), The Fifty Year Sword by Mark Z. Danielewski (our interview), The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira by César Aira (our review), and Zoo Time by past Booker Prize-winner Howard Jacobson. In non-fiction, Mark Bowden has penned an account of the killing of bin Laden.
●
●