You’re probably up to your neck in World Cup coverage, but here are some gems well worth your attention no matter what: Teju Cole created a “Copa do Mundo do Brasil” playlist to set the mood; Pablo Torre’s one-sentence-long summation of Day One in São Paulo; an excerpt from Aleksandar Hemon’s The Matters of Life, Death, and More: Writing on Soccer; The New Republic’s round-up of “eleven writers and intellectuals on the World Cup’s most compelling characters“; and, of course, Shaj Mathew’s recent Millions review of Brazil’s Dance with the Devil.
The World Cup of Tabs
Choking Hazard
Check out new fiction from You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine author Alexandra Kleeman.
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“A secret, writerly sympathy for the hoarder”
Adding to a review by Pamela Erens for The Millions, Zoë Heller reads Janet Malcolm’s Forty One False Starts for the New York Review of Books. Among other things, she concludes that the writer’s job, at least in Malcolm’s estimation, is “to vanquish mess.” (You could also read a review in The Nation I wrote about a few weeks ago.)
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A History of Beauty
“‘Man is hungry for beauty. There is a void.’ Nine words. Take a moment. Say them aloud. What else is there to be said?” –Arthur Krystal’s essay on Umberto Eco’s History of Beauty, at Powell’s Books. (via Arts & Letters Daily)
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Spillman’s Memoir
Recommended Reading: Rob Spillman, editor of Tin House, speaks with the LA Times about his new memoir, All Tomorrow’s Parties. Spillman was featured in our piece on literary editors’ favorite issues of their magazines.
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Reliable Suspense
What’s the greatest tool to create suspense? An unreliable narrator, according to Gillian Flynn, who is a master of them if you’ve read Gone Girl. She discussed how to write a good thriller, why she doesn’t believe in guilty pleasure reading, and her ambitious quest to read every Pulitzer Prize-winning novel in chronological order in a New York Times “By the Book” interview. Pair with: Our conversation about Gone Girl.
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