Lucky Alan, which came out in February, is Jonathan Lethem’s first new story collection in more than ten years. He talked with Matt Bell about it in an interview at Salon. “What’s great about short stories is the opportunity to play at reinvention; all those new departures, all those new landings to try to stick,” he says. You could also read our review of his novel Dissident Gardens.
Start Again
An Arrow Pointed to Meaning
Anthony Domestico interviews C. E. Morgan about her second novel, The Sport of Kings, one of the most anticipated books of 2016. As she puts it, “Every aspect of the novel is–or should be—an arrow pointed towards its ultimate meaning, or a multiplicity of possible meanings.”
Viet Thanh Nguyen and the Refugee’s Narrative
Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses the complexity behind refugee narratives and resisting the temptation of shallow representation.
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A Bumpy Flight
Sick of Delta delays? Take one of Mallory Ortberg’s literary airlines listed in her humor post at The Toast. “Thanks for flying Jane Air. Are you escaping for business or for pleasure? Will you be stowing any wives today?”
So What? He Says
Following the Irish release of The Guts, the new Roddy Doyle novel that brings back Jimmy Rabbitte from The Commitments, The Irish Times interviews Doyle, who remembers a time when his writing garnered him death threats. Sample quote: “I drove the guy in the next room demented as I replayed an old tape, repeating the same musical phrase, again and again.”
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Zadie Smith on Charity
“But money is not neutral; it changes everything, including the ability to neutrally judge what people will or will not do for it.” Zadie Smith has a short essay in the New Yorker on the trials of lending money to a friend.
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Hell on Mail
At HTMLGIANT, Roxane Gay gets down to the details of everything she’s learned about the challenges and pitfalls, much of it shipping-related, of running a micropress. Essential reading for those dreaming of starting a small press one day.
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Choose Your Own Adventure Real Talk
For the most part, the scariest thing you can do in a choose your own adventure book is choose to enter a cave. At The Toast, Mallory Ortberg shows us what choose your own adventure would’ve looked like if it were historically accurate. “It is daytime. Turn to page 19. Page 19: You have died in childbirth.”
Page 19: You have died in childbirth
Read more at http://the-toast.net/2014/04/23/choose-adventure-human-history/#crEV03DC0ezuzuuz.99
It is daytime. Turn to page 19.
Read more at http://the-toast.net/2014/04/23/choose-adventure-human-history/#crEV03DC0ezuzuuz.99
It is daytime. Turn to page 19.
Read more at http://the-toast.net/2014/04/23/choose-adventure-human-history/#crEV03DC0ezuzuuz.99
It is daytime. Turn to page 19.
Read more at http://the-toast.net/2014/04/23/choose-adventure-human-history/#crEV03DC0ezuzuuz.99
It is daytime. Turn to page 19.
Read more at http://the-toast.net/2014/04/23/choose-adventure-human-history/#crEV03DC0ezuzuuz.99