In honor of Bloomsday, some recommended reading, listening, and playing: one-day diaries of four modern Blooms in New York, Radio Bloomsday’s seven hours of readings (by Alec Baldwin, John Lithgow, Jerry Stiller, Garrison Keillor, and others), even found poetry and an iPhone game drawn from the text of Ulysses. Oh, and–of course–James Joyce’s book itself.
Happy 110th Bloomsday! (2/2)
Unruly Bodies on Medium
YiR alum Roxane Gay and Medium have collaborated on a magazine that will feature pieces throughout the month from 24 different writers. The writers all address the question “what does it mean to live in an unruly body?” and they range from Kiese Laymon to Keah Brown to Randa Jarrar.
“We are pouring a lot of money down the drain”
A lucid piece in The Boston Globe explains how “academic publishing is not a free market.”
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The Sentences of one ZS.
Last night I went to see Zadie Smith read and chat at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre. I wrote a little #LitBeat about it, which makes it officially NW day at The Millions, given today’s main page review.
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Hatchet Job Prize
Turns out Americans aren’t the only ones who adore snark. The novelist and critic Adam Mars-Jones has won the first Hatchet Job prize from the British website Omnivore for his blistering takedown of Michael Cunningham’s latest novel, By Nightfall. Mars-Jones beat out Geoff Dyer’s slam of Booker Prize winner Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending. “It isn’t terrible,” Dyer wrote, “it’s just so…average.”
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Only Thwack a Little
“WHAT DO YOU DO? If you go to the elder debate and support gay marriage because all members of your village should have the right to a love that’s recognized by the State, close the book now. You will not impress the elders whose support you will so desperately need on your journey. Instead, your bravery will be met by an angry horde who throws you into Deadman’s Bog. If you oppose Zylorg’s marriage until a more politically opportune time — perhaps, after several gay bogmen sitcoms become popular — then congratulations, advance to page 38.” These excerpts from Hillary Clinton’s imagined, dystopian, choose-your-own-adventure YA novel are enlightening.
The Worst Thing About Owning a Bookstore
The worst thing about owning your own bookstore? According to Garrison Keillor, it’s that “you do not get a 10 percent discount when you buy books. I don’t know why. It was explained to me once, and I didn’t understand. I mean, I’m the owner, right? But no, that’s not how it’s done.”
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