“Every writer needs an editor, and anyone who says he doesn’t has a fool for a muse.” The New York Times interviews journalists on the importance of editors, and it’s well worth the short read. Pair with our own Edan Lepucki‘s conversation with her editor.
“Every writer needs an editor”
Moment Four
Who better to review a new sci-fi book than Ursula Le Guin? The Guardian editors couldn’t think of a better candidate either. She reviewed the new story collection Three Moments of an Explosion by the English writer China Miéville. Sample quote: “Pastiche, when present, is so skilful that it can go unnoticed.” You could also read our own Bill Morris on discovering Miéville’s work.
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The Missing Books
Featuring missing titles from Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, Roberto Bolaño, Vladimir Nabokov et al., The Missing Books is a project by Scott Esposito to assemble “a curated directory of books that do not exist, but should.” If that puts you in the mood for further Borgesian hijinks, consider Sam Allingham‘s piece about a summer spent cataloguing books in a university library basement.
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Sergio De La Pava on Boxing
Did Garth Risk Hallberg’s profile of Sergio De La Pava, enigmatic author of A Naked Singularity, whet your appetite for a taste of his writing? Well, check out this excerpt from the book over at The Classical.
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Turn On, Tune In, Drop Dead
“If you remember the sixties, then you weren’t really there.” We’ve all heard the saying, but in case you actually forgot what the sixties were like, I have good news for you. The complete archive of Oz Magazine, sometimes called the most controversial magazine of the sixties, is available for download over at Open Culture. Oz regularly featured work by such artists as R. Crumb, Germaine Greer, and many more.
Translators Deserve More Accolades
Daniel Hahn reminds us that translators are vastly under appreciated. To help combat this, he created the TA First Translation prize, an award that will go to a translator for a book’s English-language debut. “There are many prizes in the book world, perhaps too many. But some exist not merely to reward one individual per year, but also to make a statement about what should be valued, and what we need more of. “