Millions staffer Mark O’Connell recently took a look at Édouard Levé’s Works. “For the most part, it’s a catalogue of unrealized creativity,” he writes. “Which in the very extensiveness of its cataloging becomes a monstrous paradox of realized creativity.” (Related: O’Connell previously reviewed Levé’s Suicide and Autoportrait for our site.)
Édouard Levé’s “Monstrous Paradox.”
Ten Bloodiest Bedtime Stories
For those of you who ask, like Jacob Lambert, whether picture books are leading our children astray, the Independent posts ten of the bloodiest bedtime stories.
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The perils of befriending your heros.
David Bezmozgis‘s beautiful and painful essay on befriending his literary hero, Leonard Michaels.
Constance Garnett Gets Her Due
Sara Wheeler tells the story of Constance Garnett, an "indefatigable worker" who translated the works of Dostoevsky and Chekhov.
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To the Choir
It can be hard for critics to strike a balance between high theory and accessible prose. For James Wood, the key is to retain enough theoretical knowledge to come up with an insightful point, while still retaining the ability to write in a natural dialect. In The Guardian, he talks about his own relationship with books.
Colson Whitehead’s Two Types of Books
“There’s only two kinds of books, shit you like, and shit you don’t like," Colson Whitehead told the crowd in his lively AWP Keynote.
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