Last week, I mentioned Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes, which caused a stir in Germany with its tale of a time-hopping Hitler. Now, Daniel Torday reviews the book for the Times, judging it both for its historical research and its merits as a work of fiction. Sample quote: “The German public’s acceptance of the artist they think they’re watching provides a critique of pop culture. But it feels like bringing the Luftwaffe to a knife fight.”
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Harry Potter on Kindle
Pottermore is open for business. J.K. Rowling's boy wizard books are now available on Kindle for the first time ever.
Pray for Me
After working on his novel Family Life for seven years, Akhil Sharma began to lose his mind. Whenever he sat down to write, he began having panic attacks, the kind that left his chest feeling “constantly bruised” for months on end. Eventually, he hit on a solution: he learned to take his mind off his novel by praying for other people.
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The Deepest Feeling
“Love / is the only fortress / strong enough to trust to.” Mary-Kay Wilmers for the London Review of Books reviews Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore. In the book, Moore’s slightly-bizarre domestic life is examined with fairness and honesty alongside her impressive body of work. If poetry is your thing, check out our On Poetry column for more.
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Cheers to You, Madame Bovary
It's Banned Books Week -- time to celebrate your right to read Women in Love, Ulysses, and other notables from the ALA's list of banned or challenged books. Though, according to the Wall Street Journal, this is a whole lotta hoo-ha over nothing.
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Gonzo Film Crit at Gizmodo
At Gizmodo, the art of the Comcast movie summary. (My favorite is The Seventh Sign, though I Know Who Killed Me --an unforgettable piece of so-bad-its-good filmmaking--runs a close second.)
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The Kiss
Check out a piece from Year in Reading alum Rebecca Makkai about an important kiss at Guernica Mag.
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