Amidst all the sad tales of great bookstores going under, the Strand remains a fixture of the New York lit scene. At Vulture, Chris Bonanos explores the many reasons why the Strand is still afloat, among them the store’s increasing sales of new books. You could also read our own Janet Potter on her lifelong infatuation with bookstores.
Staying Alive
The Vaguest Designation
“The wish to be a writer, and the will to be one, solve nothing about how you will live, and don’t even solve anything about how you will write. You have given yourself the vaguest designation.” Kristy Eldredge writes for The Rumpus about drawing inspiration from the unconventional career choices of Year in Reading alum Geoff Dyer, including the New York Times column he almost never wrote. Pair her essay with our own Janet Potter‘s review of Dyer’s latest full-length work, Another Great Day at Sea.
“The Threadbare Art of My Eye”
As Robert Lowell put it: “sometimes everything I write / with the threadbare art of my eye / seems a snapshot.” Poetry and photography.
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Thomas M. Disch Appendix
At Waggish, David Auerbach has published an appendix to his recent piece for The Millions on Thomas M. Disch.
Meet Ironheart
“I just think it’ll have such a positive effect on the geek community, the black girl community, the black geek girl community… just opening the doors of your mind to what you can achieve.” The newest character to wear Iron Man’s suit? A 15-year-old girl named Riri Williams, reports NPR. As for your own inner geek, might they be interested in an unauthorized corporate history of Marvel Comics?
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“You’re a fiction writing professor.”
“You have a hard time imagining how the things you’ve experienced or discovered, which seem abjectly personal, could be of use to another writer. You’re aware that you can follow every single rule in the book, and still write a crappy story.” The Preservationist author Justin Kramon grapples with the idea of teaching writing to college students.
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Give Me a Break
It’s Labor Day weekend, a perfect time relax and center yourself after a particularly boring work week. What better way than with this helpful (and hilarious) collection of stress-relieving adult-coloring-book pages of things that stress you out, including everything from Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston’s “super aggro press tour” to awkward conversations on the subway.
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“And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly tweet.”
Henry Eliot, playing the Host, led an expedition of 24 pilgrims on a modern-day, multimedia reenactment of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. You can check out their recap complete with pictures, audio, and video over at The Guardian.
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The Curious History of a Curious Account
Our own Michael Bourne takes a look at Thomas King’s Inconvenient Indian, which struggled to find a publisher in the United States despite flying off the shelves in Canada. “The curious publication history of [the book],” Bourne writes, “serves as a window into the wide differences in the way mainstream Americans and Canadians view the Native peoples in their midst.”
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