Last week, I pointed readers to a recording of Benedict Cumberbatch on BBC Radio, reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Over at Slate, Rebecca Schuman explains why Cumberbatch is the story’s ideal reader, unpacking his “withering, perfectly enunciated deadpan.”
A Proper Sociopath
Brian Jacques, R.I.P.
Brian Jacques, whose Redwall series beginning with Redwall and Mossflower figured prominently in my life as a young reader, has died.
Finishing Novels in Prison
The China Daily has an article today criticizing corrupt Chinese officials for signing lucrative book deals in prison. They must not know that some of the world’s most influential works of philosophy and fiction were written in the slammer.
Laura Miller on Self-Publishing
In Salon, Laura Miller discusses the brave new world of self-publishing: “You’ve either experienced slush or you haven’t, and the difference is not trivial.”
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It Was A Dark and Stormy Night
What have you found in your grandparents’ attics lately? Bet it wasn’t a signed copy of Frankenstein.
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Vintage Hemingway
The Toronto Star is re-releasing the columns Ernest Hemingway wrote for the paper in the early 1920s. I particularly recommend his column on bullfighting, “Bullfighting is Not a Sport – It is a Tragedy.”
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Lots of Chutzpah
Recommended Reading: Here’s some helpful advice we all could use — how to raise a mensch: “Less obvious but equally central values that Marjorie Ingall highlights include having a healthy distrust of authority. Jews come from a vertiginously long tradition of ‘questioning, yammering, challenging and disputing,’ she writes. ‘The Talmud, the compendium of Jewish law, is pretty much a bunch of dudes contradicting one another. Each page is a big box of text in the middle, and wrapped around it like a frame is lots of ‘Wait, you think what?’ '”
Brand New Books in Your Ear
Hey book podcast lovers, Between the Covers has a new episode out featuring author Thalia Field on her fascinating-sounding novel Experimental Animals. For more literary listens, see our round-up of 10 more shows to check out.
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