Darcey Steinke has a new novel, Sister Golden Hair, coming out this fall, and Granta has an excerpt available online. For more about Steinke, be sure to read Lydia Millet‘s praise for her early novel, Jesus Saves.
New Novel, New Excerpt
“bikinis meet their match”
Planning to strut your stuff while reading on the beach? Don’t forget to match your book.
The Particular Pleasures of Literature
At 3 Quarks Daily, Akeel Bilgrami’s essay on the pleasures of literature: “To understand what is special about literature is not to delegate the emotions to literature while retaining thought for philosophy and science. The idea is to find in the distinctly expressive function of literature, a refusal of that tired dualism.” (via Book Bench)
New Quarterly Conversation
A new issue of The Quarterly Conversation covers Gaddis, Müeller, and the Nordic masculinity of Per Petterson, among other topics.
More on Maxwell’s
A few weeks ago, our own Nick Moran wrote about the closing of Maxwell’s, a Hoboken landmark that doubles as a restaurant and concert space. Now, at The Paris Review Daily, Josh Lieberman goes to the venue’s last Feelies concert, pointing out that “in no way is Maxwell’s an ideal place to see a show, except that it is.”
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Who Are They?
Recommended Reading: A brief history of the gender-neutral pronoun “they,” from Shakespeare to Girls and The Argonauts.
Islands: Remote and Suspicious
If you dug Judith Schalansky‘s Atlas of Remote Islands (a Millions Hall-of-Famer), you should check out cartographer Victoria Johnson‘s list of “suspicious-sounding islands.”
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The Smoking Gun
“As a literary symbol portraying man’s tragic nature, is any more compelling than a gun? A gun lets fear become death, quiet desperation become brutality whose fallout others are forced to deal with.” Over at The Literary Hub, a list of 10 novels that follow Chekhov‘s famous dictum, literally. Might we also suggest our own Emily St. John Mandel‘s The Singer’s Gun?
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