Reading War and Peace was always a challenge, but how much harder is it in an age of constant distraction? At Salon, Mike Harris, a self-confessed distraction addict, writes about his experience tackling the Russian classic. You could also read our own Kevin Hartnett on the book’s effect on perception.
War and Hold On a Minute
Jane Smiley on Comfort Reading Anthony Trollope
Jane Smiley discusses the author she turns to when she needs something comfortable and reassuring: Anthony Trollope.
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Claudel Wins Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
Philippe Claudel’s novel Brodeck’s Report has won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. The book was released in the U.S. as Brodeck and sounds mighty intriguing.
Imagining My Way In
Recommended (Heartbreaking) Reading: On a father’s suicide and a son’s journey to learn a bit about the life of the man he hardly even knew.
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Tao Lin: The Next Big Thing?
At Salon, Daniel Roberts profiles Tao Lin, the next big thing in urban hipster lit. According to the skinny jeans-clad hipsters reading his books on the L train, at least. Says one: “That guy is the next big thing.”
D.H. Lawrence on Trial
Ben Yagoda provides a step-by-step recount of the 1959 British obscenity case over Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and every noted literary name from Graham Greene to Evelyn Waugh to T. S. Eliot who weighed in: “The whole thing was very well stage-managed with a splendid cast.”
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