Going Clear author Lawrence Wright is adapting his play, Sonny’s Last Shot, to develop an HBO series about “the crazy, brutal world of Texas politics,” reports Deadline.
Friday Night Filibusters
Failsafe
In 1979, William Gaddis taught a course at Bard College on “The Literature of Failure,” examining works that somehow focused on personal failure or insufficiency. These included, among other books, Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays, as well as Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. In Bookforum, Casey Michael Henry takes on a related genre: the literature of obsolescence. You could also read James Cappio on meeting Gaddis in person.
●
●
Hurricane Harvey Relief
The Texas Library Association has a disaster relief fund to support damaged libraries, and you can give to it here (via Book Riot).
●
●
Adventures in Publishing
At My Life and Thoughts, Elif Batuman–in delightfully Elifish style–describes her first book travails and unveils a preliminary sketch for the cover of her forthcoming first book The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, drawn by New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast.
“In the morning, I don’t talk to anyone”
Roxana Robinson (who’s written for us) explores the complications of writing first thing in the morning.
●
●
Paris Review to Publish Bolaño
For its spring issue, the Paris Review will be publishing Roberto Bolaño’s The Third Reich—its first serialized novel in forty years—with original illustrations by Leanne Shapton. It’s a chance to discover Bolaño’s famous lost novel almost a year before it appears in book form.
●
●
●
●
●