Recommended Viewing: As this year’s World Cup heats up, take a look at what may lie ahead. E:60’s piece on the shameful set-up for Qatar’s 2022 tournament should be an eye-opener in a lot of ways.
The Beautiful Shame
Weary Old Men
In an excerpt of Out of Time, a new book on “the pleasures and perils of ageing,” author Lynne Segal makes a case that many iconic male writers -- among them Philip Roth, John Updike and Martin Amis -- display in their works a belief that the slow loss of virility is one of the most tragic effects of growing older for men. Citing passages from Toward the End of Time and Portnoy’s Complaint, she finds evidence that these writers' depictions of masculinity reveal “obdurate social hierarchies of gender and ageing." (Related: Keith Meatto on advice you can glean from Philip Roth’s work.)
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Impolitic
Is all literature political? Is this political? Are you political?
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Ben Marcus’s Language
"Language starts to shut down the strength and power and strangeness of what it means to be a person in the world." At The Rumpus, Ben Marcus discusses how he uses language in his writing and his new short story collection, Leaving the Sea (featured in our 2014 book preview.) Pair with: Our own Adam Boretz's interview with Marcus and our review of The Flame Alphabet.
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Ray Bradbury Passes Away
Ray Bradbury, author of such classics as Fahrenheit 451, has passed away at the age of 91, reports io9. I'll always remember the first time I read The Veldt (PDF), and being scared out of my adolescent mind.
Economics of the E-Book
The Wall Street Journal reports how literary authors are feeling the pinch in the age of e-books: “The upshot: From an e-book sale, an author makes a little more than half what he or she makes from a hardcover sale.”
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