This week, Richard Ford published his first novel in a while to feature Frank Bascombe, the protagonist of his Pulitzer-winning book The Sportswriter. At Salon, our own Lydia Kiesling posits a through-line from Bascombe to a certain TV gangster, arguing that The Sopranos shares its view of manhood with Ford’s novels. You could also read our own Michael Bourne on Ford’s 2012 book, Canada.
The Patriarch
“God put the needle on the disc of Saturn / The record he played revealed blueprints and patterns”
GZA has teamed up with top cosmologists and physicists from MIT and Cornell to produce his latest album, Dark Matter. The album is the first in a series “designed to get a wide audience hooked on science.”
Now That’s a Hiatus
Whenever you feel bad, remember: Tessa Hadley didn’t believe in her work for twenty years.
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But all he eats is candy.
The history behind the iconic Esquire cover that depicts Andy Warhol trapped in a swirling vortex of tomato soup. Before photoshop! I have a reproduction of this particular cover hanging in my kitchen, and I have to tell you that I can’t bear to eat canned Tomato soup at all anymore.
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Another Movie Adaptation in Suck City
Nick Flynn‘s memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (reviewed on our site last year) is being adapted into a movie for 2012. Being Flynn will star Paul Dano as Flynn, and his parents will be played by Robert De Niro and Julianne Moore. You can check out a trailer here. Or, if you want to check out what kind of books Flynn likes, you can check out his 2010 entry in our Year In Reading series.
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The Return of Binge Reading
Novelist Ben Dolnick makes the case for indulging in a good binge-reading session.
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