Add this to the list of incredible things you didn’t know you needed until now. At Quartz, Jenni Avins reads through a selection of hand-typed book reviews, found in the NYPL’s archives, in which librarians tear apart children’s books they find objectionable. Sample quote, from a review of Green Eggs and Ham: “There must be better ways of teaching a child to read than this.”
Dr. Seuss and The Very Bad Influence
Slate’s New Language Podcast
Word nerds will likely dig Slate's new language-focused podcast, Lexicon Valley, with Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo.
●
●
Appearing Elsewhere (Down Under)
I was a guest on the most recent episode of ABC (Australia) Radio's The Book Show alongside Sophie Cunningham of Meanjin. We discussed literary blogging, how it's evolved and its impact on literary culture. Have a listen!
Incredibly Big and Extremely Close
"I have a big global voice, but a small local one, because I don’t want to be a target, and resent that in 2017, that’s still the only choice I get to have. I have a rule of leaving the party, or social space as soon as I see five white people drunk, because the only person who will remember that moment when everybody got hella racist will be me. I have a self-imposed curfew of when to ride my bike home, when to leave the park. I would rather risk my life riding late at night on the empty and mostly dark greenway, than riding on the street with Police officers looking for whoever matches a description." A Brief History of Seven Killings author Marlon James writes on Facebook (?) about being big, close, and black in the U S of A. Pair with Kaulie Lewis on reading James's The Book of Night Women during her senior year.
●
●
One comment:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Make Way for Ward
Jesmyn Ward signed a deal for two books with Simon & Schuster: one adult novel with Scribner and the other a middle-grade novel with Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, according to Publisher's Weekly. From our archives: Ward's 2017 Year in Reading entry and our interview with the two-time National Book Award winner.
Riding and Writing
Recommended reading: Monica McFawn writes for Brevity "On Riding and Writing Boldly."
This Is Not a Novel
Lindsey Drager considers the novella and argues that it is neither a feminine form nor a smaller type of novel. As she puts it, “while other fiction aims outward, the novella curls in, coiling around itself until there’s no distinction between the story’s body and the story’s shell.” Pair with our own Nick Ripatrazone’s essay on the art of the novella.
It’s interesting that the person who wrote the negative review of “Green Eggs and Ham” misspelled “onslaught.”