Need some inspiration? These quotes from Joan Didion are sure to make your day. Picked by noted Ayn Rand scholar Mallory Ortberg, they include such gems as “I’m from Sacramento, but it’s honestly not a big deal” and “California doesn’t remind me of the apocalypse at all.”
The Essence of Slouching
One of Ireland’s Lesser Known Sons
For those aching for more Ireland in the wake of Bloomsday, here’s a piece about noir-master Raymond Chandler’s childhood in Waterford.
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Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s Love Stories
“[Ludmilla] Petrushevskaya doesn’t write about isolated acts of depravity; she writes about universal ones,” says Michael Robbins in his review of There Once Lived a Girl. “What’s scary about her narratives is their implication that only the thinnest film, which might rip at any time, separates us from the chaos and breakdown they describe.” Our own Janet Potter also reviewed Petrushevskaya’s work this week, and she focused on the romantic hopes of its characters. “What’s remarkable,” Potter writes, “is not the love they find, but the fact that they’re looking for it.”
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The Modern Memoir
Recommended Reading: On the memoir, “the offspring of the slave narrative,” as a literary form from the Black tradition. Recent examples range from Ta-Nehisi Coates and Margo Jefferson to Clifford Thompson and Rosemarie Freeney.
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Imagination, Memory, a Dictionary
Would Vladimir Nabokov have considered you a good reader? Take this little quiz and find out for yourself. Then, allow Garth Risk Hallberg to explain to you why Nabokov’s Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle is difficult, but well worth the effort.
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“Made Twilight look like War and Peace”
Herewith, an amazing takedown of Fifty Shades of Grey, spoken by none other than a horrified Salman Rushdie. If a quote like this isn’t a good reason to go to The New Yorker Festival, we don’t know what is.