“Learning to really listen to it and learning to kind of embrace it, rather than running away from it, was a very useful thing to do,” says Hari Kunzru of the sounds of New York City’s streets. The sirens, horns, and arguments are the inspiration for his new “multimedia book,” Twice Upon a Time: Listening to New York. (Bonus: Kunzru has participated in our Year in Reading series two times in the past.)
The Sounds of New York
Revenge Book Trailer
Behold the creepy beauty of the book trailer for Revenge, Yoko Ogawa’s latest collection of stories. It’s a collection haunted not only by the shadow of Haruki Murakami, writes NPR’s Alan Cheuse, but also “the shadow of Borges.”
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It’s not plagiarism… it’s angloglobalisation?
On the London Review of Books blog, Kaya Genç makes the case that the similarities between the successful Turkish author Elif Şafak's work and Zadie Smith's books is a fact of Turkey's shifting cultural values rather than plagiarism: "Istanbul, the city Shafak returned to after writing her book in London and the setting for many of her earlier novels, resembles London more and more." For a bit of context, here's Lydia Kiesling's rundown of the initial scandal.
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The Etiquette of Books
"Books: As with food and clothing, they’re a commodity that elicits status anxiety for many people, particularly the insecure. And wherever there is status anxiety, there are potential minefields. We need to tread with the lightness of meringue." Henry Alford explains the etiquette of books for The New York Times.
Two from Eileen Myles
Recommended Reading: Two poems by Eileen Myles, including what I now consider to be the finest poem about flowers ever written.
Introducing Full Stop
A new lit-focussed site has launched recently. Full Stop already has an impressive number of reviews on display alongside interviews with Gary Shteyngart and Charles Burns.
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Best New Blogs
A fresh take on the year-end list: Bygone Bureau's Best New Blogs of 2010.