“Sitting down to read The Actress, Amy Sohn’s newest novel, is even better than standing in line at the grocery store while the person in front of you disputes the price of a carton of orange juice, giving you extra time to read the tabloids. The Actress might be as licentious as a tabloid, but it is far more intelligently written. And, you probably won’t be reading it while standing in line inside a grocery store.”
Tabloid Fodder
What an Egomaniac!
“If only we could talk! Like the evening before last, I had actually just stayed the night at the house where I’d been drinking, purely and simply because they didn’t want me to drive back drunk. But I couldn’t tell you that, because telling you would have suggested that you minded; and that’s the kind of minding we never talk of. We only either kid each other about it, or get angry.” The love letters of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy (one of the first openly gay relationships in Hollywood) are delicate and beautiful.
Portrait Book Documentary
Years ago, we wrote about La Porte, Indiana, a nifty book with a connection to Found Magazine chronicling a cache of found photographs from a small town. Now the book is being made into a documentary.
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More on Banville
Yesterday I pointed out that John Banville wrote a new Philip Marlowe novel under the pen name Benjamin Black. If you’re a fan of Banville — and you live in LA — you can hear him talk about the book this Thursday at Sundance Cinemas.
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Best American Notables at The Millions
We’re proud to report that “Beautiful Babies” by our editor Lydia Kiesling and “Summer without End” by Wayne Scott were both named “Notable Essays” in the 2016 edition of The Best American Essays, edited by Jonathan Franzen.
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“That makes it easy, doesn’t it?”
Thanks to her new book, Lydia Davis is getting a lot of well-deserved attention, including an interview with Salon this week. In conversation with Brendan Matthews, she reflects on her “letters of complaint,” her habit of juggling multiple projects and the effects of translating Proust on writing emails.
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Indie Lit Wish List
The recently-revived HTMLGiant previewed twelve indie lit books being published in 2017, and the list is a terrific supplement to our own Great 2017 Book Preview.
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