“Most of the time I think of the self as a snare, and I don’t like being trapped in it. I try to reach out beyond my pittance of experience and connect to the world, but it turns out one way to do that is to be honest and accurate about my own life.” Leslie Jamison interviews Charles D’Ambrosio for The New Yorker. Pair with our own Hannah Gersen‘s review of D’Ambrosio’s Loitering.
“Instead of Sobbing, You Write Sentences”
Celebrating, Not Sanitizing, Complicated Women Writers
“Somehow, in my eagerness to honor these words, I’d tamed the political intentions behind their meaning. I’d reduced my icon’s truths into affirmational pick-me-ups rather than letting them sink deeper.” Dianca Potts reflects on how to best to appreciate the fullness of Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde and Toni Morrison. We need to resist erasing their complexities in our haste to embrace them as icons or reduce them to inspirational quotes.
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The Why and How of Colophons
Ever wondered why Knopf’s colophon is a borzoi, or why Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s colophon appears to be a musician riding a flying dolphin? Well, now you can find out. Also, a while back, HTMLGIANT‘s Jimmy Chen ranked some colophons by their ability to fly.
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Lolita Grows Up
Vladimir Nabokov‘s Lolita has gone through many cover transformations over the years. Did you know this one was supposed to be sideways?
Origin Story
Over at JSTOR Daily, Tara Isabella Burton writes on historical interpretations of the Book of Genesis and literal readings of a text that had been interpreted as allegory for centuries.
Tuesday New Release Day: Ball; Flanery; MacMahon; Raabe; Feldman; Ryan; Hebert
New this week: How to Set a Fire and Why by Jesse Ball; I Am No One by Patrick Flanery; The Long, Hot Summer by Kathleen MacMahon; The Trap by Melanie Raabe; Absalom’s Daughters by Suzanne Feldman; The Dream Life of Astronauts by Patrick Ryan; and Angels of Detroit by Christopher Hebert.
Clinton’s Appetite for Diet Books
Bill Clinton, at 65, has become the Blurber-in-Chief, an activist health convert who has enthusiastically endorsed three diet books: Eddie Shapes Up by Ed Koch, Think and Grow Thin by weight-loss coach Charles D’Angelo, and The Blood Sugar Solution: The UltraHealthy Program for Losing Weight, Preventing Disease, and Feeling Great Now, a new book by Dr. Mark Hyman. No more “Fat Elvis” jokes for Bill.
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