Recommended Reading: Adam Shatz on Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission.
Les Mosquees
Why Iceland? Is It the Cod?
VQR contributor Bill Hayes explains his reasons for visiting Iceland as often as he does, and, surprisingly, does not count VQR’s great piece about Iceland’s fisheries among them.
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Untethered
“Her characters sleepwalk to their certain fates through artificial pocket universes, each one seemingly constructed to satisfy the curiosity of an inhumane, omniscient narrator. Few writers have been so consistently and brilliantly unkind.” On Muriel Spark’s The Bachelors.
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Laissez les Bons Livres Roulent
If you’re like me and you’re interested in all things Big Easy, you’ll be very excited by the offerings on the Times-Picayune’s “Summer Book List for New Orleans.”
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On the Greatness of Talking Rabbits
A decade before Matt Groening created The Simpsons, he debuted his first comic, Life in Hell, at a record store in Los Angeles. The strip kept running for thirty-five years, even after The Simpsons brought its creator international fame. He decided to end it earlier this year, and his fans (including Alison Bechdel) are paying tribute.
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Elena Ferrante Revealed
Elena Ferrante has revealed her true identity. At McSweeney’s. You could also read this piece on Ferrante’s “encompassing vision of human experience.”
Rilke, Nietzsche, and More in ’90s Movies
For LitHub, Emily Temple compiled 50 literary cameos in '90s movies, ranging from Cher and Peyton Place to Lauryn Hill and Rilke, with plenty of Shakespeare throughout.
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The Best of the Best
Authors, including Jennifer Egan, George Saunders, Ali Smith, and our own Chigozie Obioma, chose their Best Books of 2017 in a two-part series for The Guardian. If you enjoyed that list, make sure to check out our Year in Reading: 2017 series all throughout December.