Recommended Reading: Tyler Malone’s interview with Tom Muir, the site manager of the Thomas Wolfe memorial.
Going Home
Pinochet’s Library
According to The Secret Literary Life of Augusto Pinochet author Cristóbal Peña, the Chilean dictator “was tormented by an intense inferiority complex, which he tried to deal with by collecting books.” A recent article in The New York Times provides a look at that book collection, which totaled around 50,000 books and has been valued at around $3 million.
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Science and literature
Why do we love fiction? The New York Times examines the links between science and literature: "It’s not that evolution gives us insight into fiction ... but that fiction gives us insight into evolution.”
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The Long Goodbye
A lot of writers have alter-egos, but few are as interesting as Benjamin Black, the crime-writing persona of Irish novelist and Year in Reading alum John Banville. The author’s new novel adds an entry to the saga of a crime-fiction icon: Raymond Chandler’s Angeleno detective, Philip Marlowe.
Toni Morrison and Junot Díaz in Conversation
Recommended Viewing: Toni Morrison spoke with Junot Díaz at the New York Public Library last week, and the organizers were good enough to record the entire conversation and put it online. The talk begins at the 40:09 mark, so you can either fast forward or click this link right here.
Hustle and Flow
The writer needs to be a hustler to survive, essayist Aaron Gilbreath argues. He literally took to the streets of Portland to hand sell his work. Pair with our essay, “Instant Lessons: First Novel Karma.”
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If I Were a Boy
“I like a lot of things about being a woman, but there are times and ways it’s a prison, and sometimes I daydream about being out of that prison.” The Guardian has a crack Rebecca Solnit essay about clothing, gender, and of course, mansplaining. Pair with our review of Solnit's The Faraway Nearby.