What if Petrarch had blurbed The Divine Comedy, or Shakespeare, “author of Tony Award-winning sensation Hamlet,” had reviewed Don Quixote? Tom Rachman imagines these blurbs and more for The Rumpus, and his piece pairs well with our brief history of the blurb.
The History of the Blurb
In Defense of Criticism
Glen Duncan, author of the genre novel The Last Werewolf, opened his New York Times review of Colson Whitehead‘s Zone One with this controversial line: “A literary novelist writing a genre novel is like an intellectual dating a porn star”. Understandably, this led to some uproar. Now he’s doubling down on his stance.
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#LastTweet
The Times collects the final tweets of a number of celebrities who died this year. They are generally banal but the context turns them poignant.
Do you have a little bit of writerly blood thirst?
On June 7th Canteen is hosting a battle in NYC’s KGB Bar. The event is called Outwrite and will pit Matthew Aaron Goodman, author of Hold Love Strong, against twelve two unknown volunteers in a flash writing competition. Alexander Chee will be reading from his new novel while the contestants prepare their weapons. This would make a great #LitBeat, and if you’re interested in covering this, get in touch with me here.
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2015 Tournament of Books Winner Announced
After five rounds, sixteen books and more hard choices than we can count, The Morning News has chosen this year’s champion of the Tournament of Books. Who won, you ask? (Here’s a hint: we’re pretty happy about it.)
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Merry Plashing Sounds
“What a nice fire,” he said to himself. It certainly was. Kept him very warm, too.” That inspired bit of writing was Jack London’s short story To Build A Fire as summarized by someone who hasn’t read the book. Don’t worry, there are plenty more where that came from.
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Two-fer from Kiš
Serbian writer Danilo Kiš, recently profiled by Sam Sacks, has two short pieces up on the Bomb! website.
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