Recommended Reading: Millions contributor Shaj Mathew on avant-garde fiction.
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Go Cardinals?
How’s your NCAA bracket doing? Busted? Well, maybe you should’ve picked your teams based on which ones turn the highest profit. The Atlantic analyzed the financial data and, voilà, their bracket correctly predicted nine of the teams in the Sweet Sixteen.
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History and Story
In a piece for Public Books Rebecca Steinitz reviews some recent historical novels, including The Luminaries and The Invention of Wings, and argues that the best historical fiction “plunges the reader wholly into the past, enlightening and entertaining us, while also making us reflect on our present, in history and in literature.” Pair her piece with Laila Lalami‘s account of “How History Becomes Story.”
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PEN Literary Award Longlists Released
The final PEN Literary Award Longlists are posted today! Check out all of the lists here. Longlisters include Angela Flournoy (whom we interviewed, and who has written a Year in Reading for us), Marilynne Robinson (who is known for her singular vision), Renata Adler (about whom we have made six possibly true observations), and David L. Ulin (whose Year in Reading is here).
The Published, Paralyzed Piglet
Chris P. Bacon is a young Floridian piglet that gets around these days by utilizing a makeshift wheelchair. He also just signed a three-book deal with the world’s largest self-help and motivational publisher.
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Counter-revolutionary
It goes without saying that a man dubbed “the father of modern conservatism” might stir up contentious debates. In his heyday, Edmund Burke was so renowned as a thinker that his detractors tried to place him at the center of conspiracy theories. In a new biography, Jesse Norman tackles Burke’s thought in its entirety — a task which, in Charles Hill’s view, is nothing if not un-Burkean.
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