Recommended viewing: a trailer for the upcoming David Foster Wallace movie, an adaptation of David Lipsky‘s memoir of his road-trip with the author, Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, is now available online.
Jason Segel’s DFW
Scared of the Dead
“Scared of the living, scared of the dead, and even more scared of the dead who are immortal.” Chinese censors have cracked down on social media sites following the death and hushed burial-at-sea of writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo last week, reports The New York Times.
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Getting Millayed
Recommended Reading: Meryl Cates of The Paris Review gets Millayed in Edna St. Vincent Millay’s gardens at Steepletop, the New England-style farmhouse where the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet worked and played. Pair with this essay from The Millions on reading writers’ houses.
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Place to Place
“Now the lattice that connects us is digitally immediate we travel all the more, but we’ve lost this thrill of adventure. It’s oddly touching to read a novel where journeys are so inherently exciting, and it makes the book both consummately funny and poignantly elegiac.” On the novel Changing Places by David Lodge.
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Earnest Jest
For Atlas Obscura, Tucker Leighty-Phillips writes on how a Portuguese-to-English phrasebook, introduced to English readers by Mark Twain, became a comedy sensation. Pair with this Millions piece on Twain’s travels.
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Watkins’s Romantic Sublime
“Too vast for human comprehension, yet at the same time a tabula rasa for each fragile individual’s desires, it’s a classic example of the Romantic sublime, as mesmerising as it is deadly.” The Guardian reviews Year in Reading Alumnus Claire Vaye Watkins’s Gold Fame Citrus. Compare and contrast with our review of the novel.
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“As a man I am difficult. But I would like to be personless.”
Brooklyn Poets caught up with Danniel Schoonebeek in order to discuss one of his poems, hear about his idea of “a good day,” and take his recommendations for places to read, write, and explore in Brooklyn. I’ll tell you this much: the man knows how to pick a good happy hour.
Reading and Rock and Roll
The latest episode of WNYC's Soundcheck features Jennifer Egan discussing her rock-inflected novel A Visit from the Goon Squad and Bookslut's Michael Schaub talking up other "essential rock fiction." (Thanks, Derek)
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Calling All Students!
Calling all undergrads and grad students! McSweeney’s is holding their first-ever Student Short Story Contest. The grand prize -- $500 and publication in their 51st issue -- will go to the student who sends in the best story before the last day of August. Get cracking, but don’t go beyond their 7,500-word limit.
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