I’ve written before about the excellently titled series Novelists in Restaurants Eating Food. It lets some of our foremost literary minds reflect on places like Fallon and Byrne and Buffalo Wild Wings. Now, Millions contributor Laura van den Berg writes about Cafe Azteca in Lawrence, MA, where they make shrimp fajitas that inspire mouth-watering daydreams. Sample quote: “Love of food can be love’s most sincere form—especially when avocados are involved.”
Comparing a Fajita to a Summer’s Day
What Is Experimental Literature?
“I take to heart Percival Everett’s point that all writing begins as experiment. Experiments are hypo/theses; wagers; fermentations or useless admixtures; mud pies and blood pies.” Miranda Mellis talks with HTMLGiant’s Christopher Higgs in the next installment of Higgs's essential “What Is Experimental Literature?” interview series. It’s worth perusing the the back catalog if you missed the first three, with the fabulous Debra Di Blasi, Danielle Dutton, and Bhanu Kapil.
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Tanenhaus—author, critic, masochist
Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the New York Times Book Review, talks to Noah Charney about his life, his work, and his taste in books. Answers are typical but insightful, with one incredibly colorful exception: Tanenhaus’s ideal workplace is bizarre. (Hint: The atmosphere falls somewhere between a nuclear fallout shelter and the kind of place you would keep a hostage and it’s nothing like where we write.)
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The Revolution Will Not Have Same-Day Shipping
"If what a bookstore offers matters to you, then shop at a bookstore. If you feel that the experience of reading a book is valuable, then read the book. This is how we change the world: we grab hold of it. We change ourselves." April 30th is Independent Bookstore Day. Celebrate early with a revisit to this 2012 essay by Ann Patchett on the resilience of the indie bookstore. Here's an interview with Janet Geddis, founder of Avid Bookshop in Athens, GA, on deciding to become a bookseller.
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Move It
"These days, nothing says amateur hour quite like an alphabetical bookshelf." Sloane Crosley does not have packing tips for you, though she does have some book recommendations.
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The Novel’s Topography
For at Blunderbuss Magazine, What Belongs to You author Garth Greenwell goes through his old notebooks and describes his creative process. Also check out Jameson Fitzpatrick’s review of the novel.
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Sonya’s Favorite Novel of the Millenium (So Far)
At The Second Pass, check out my review of Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living, an unsung gem of a novel by Australian writer Carrie Tiffany.
The Process
We write a fair amount about book covers here at The Millions, but one thing we have yet to write about is the drafting process endured by designers. Herewith, a selection of book covers that didn't make the cut, juxtaposed with covers that did.