Aimee Bender, Year in Reading alum and author of, most recently, The Color Master, writes for The New York Times about the structural genius of Goodnight Moon: “[The story] does two things right away: It sets up a world and then it subverts its own rules even as it follows them.”
What We Can Learn from Goodnight Moon
…And If You Still Want More on The Pale King
I can’t recommend John Jeremiah Sullivan‘s 7,000-word article on The Pale King highly enough – not because he gets everything right, but because it’s what long-form writing about books should look like: passionate, lucid, wide-ranging, and awfully fun to read. I salute GQ for running it, and hope to see more literary coverage there in the future.
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RIP Harper Lee
Harper Lee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman, died this morning in Monroeville, Alabama at the age of 89. Lee won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for Mockingbird, which later formed the basis of a film starring Gregory Peck. To learn more about her legacy, you could read our own Michael Bourne on the hidden character of Atticus Finch, or else read Robert Rea on a pilgrimage he took to her home.
Jewel Boxes
Colm Tóibín’s new book on Elizabeth Bishop is unusually hard to categorize. Part “primer,” part “personal reflection,” in Jonathan Farmer’s words, it moves back and forth between analysis and lyricism, alternating passages of beauty with nuts-and-bolts guides to Bishop’s poems. In Slate, Farmer tries to nail it down. You could also read our own Michael Bourne’s review of Tóibín’s The Master.
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Two Dollar Radio Gets Some Press
Over at Litreactor, Joshua Chaplinsky checks in with Two Dollar Radio, the publishing outfit responsible for Grace Krilanovich’s The Orange Eats Creeps, which was one of my Year In Reading selections last year.
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Sentenced to Death
Brace yourself for disgusting, convoluted metaphors and run-on sentences. The winners of the 2012 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for the worst opening sentence to an imaginary novel have been announced.
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