Alice Bolin writes for The Believer about Joan Didion, Los Angeles, and Play It As It Lays. The novel was also listed as one of The Millions‘s “Burnt-out Summer Reads,” so if there’s ever a time to read it, it’s probably now.
Burnt-out with Didion
Interview with Lisa See
Recommended listening: The Los Angeles Review of Books interviews author Lisa See.
The Oyster Review
The e-book subscription service Oyster has recently launched The Oyster Review, and we have reason to be excited: the first issue names our own Emily St. James Mandel's Last Night in Montreal "The Book of the Week" and features a look at the novel written by former Millions intern Rachel Hurn.
Holden Caulfield Has No Friends
Chances are you’ve heard that in a recent interview, Claire Messud responded to a patronizing question about one of her characters -- “I wouldn’t want to be friends with Nora, would you?” -- by giving her interviewer a smackdown that resonated across the blogosphere. At Page-Turner, several authors (including Rivka Galchen, Jonathan Franzen and Year in Reading alumna Margaret Atwood) offer their own takes on the matter of "likeability." (There's also this piece by our own Emily St. John Mandel to consider.)
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Tuesday New Release Day: White, Holt, Meyer
New this week: Nobel Laureate Patrick White's posthumously discovered novel, The Hanging Garden; Elliott Holt's debut You Are One of Them; and The Son by Philipp Meyer.
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Dinner With Henry Miller
Name a famous person, living or dead, you'd like to have dinner with. If you answered “Henry Miller,” you can watch Dinner With Henry, a rare, 30-minute documentary about Henry Miller, that is exactly what its title implies: footage of Miller having dinner. (via @maudnewton)
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Most Epic
This week in book-related infographics: an "Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature's Most Epic Road Trips."
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The Elements of Style
Alexander Chee invites Ann Beattie, Matt Bell, and five other writers to reflect on the usage of the present tense, “the current preferred mode of the self-taught writer.” Pair with our own Michael Bourne’s essay on grammar and Anthony Doerr.
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