“Depression has a peculiar texture”

A look at Ted Berrigan's letters to his institutionalized wife, collected in Dear Sandy, Hello, at The Poetry Foundation.

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.

Ben Marcus, author of The Flame Alphabet (reviewed by us last month), does an Other People Podcast with Brad Listi.

“Could I write a novel about fugues in the form of a fugue?” Margot Singer wonders in The Paris Review, remembering the process of writing her first novel and considering other authors – Joyce, Nabokov, Woolf – who have tried to compose words musically. See also: our own Jacob Lambert on whether to write with background music on.

New from Stephen Fry: Stephen Fry in America: Fifty States and the Man Who Set Out to See Them All, a book recounting his travels in America while filming the BBC series of the same name--enlighteningly and entertainingly reviewed at The Washington Times. Includes the shocking revelation that Fry very nearly became an American! michael kors outlet michael kors outlet online cheap michael kors handbags

Booker-snubbed, but still widely anticipated, Philip Hensher's King of Badgers is out today. As are Ali Smith's There But for The, Erin Morgenstern's uber-hyped debut The Night Circus, and The Taste of Salt by Martha Southgate, who wrote here about writers' work getting better as they get older.