French-Canadian writers are in an odd place when it comes to Canadian literature. By the official definition of CanLit, they’re part of the canon, yet because of the Quebecois language barrier, they maintain a certain distance from the literature of English Canada. At Page-Turner, Pasha Malla writes about their odd identity. You could also read Andrew Saikali on Canadian novellas.
Quoi?
Gossip Girl Violence
Apparently the idea that vampires and zombies aren’t real but serial killers are didn’t occur to anyone associated with the book, Gossip Girl, Psycho Killer.
January Beaches
Recommended reading, perfect for dreary January weekends: David Sedaris writes about “ways to have fun at the beach” for The New Yorker.
Are Instagram Poets Actually Poets?
For the Poetry Foundation, Timothy Yu considers in greater depth the significance of Instagram poets in the larger world of contemporary poetry.
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Uncommon Thrills
In the Times Book Review, Year in Reading alum and Edinburgh author Alexander Chee reviews Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, a Millions contributor. He describes the book as, among other things, a departure from your average literary thriller: “If we know this story, we haven’t seen it yet in American fiction, not until now.”
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Hard Choices
Recommended Listening: David Sedaris presented three short stories while guest hosting WNYC’s Selected Shorts. The three stories were written by Amy Hempel, Tobias Wolff, and Frank Gannon, and each one has to do with “hard choices,” says Sedaris.
Freeplay
StoryBundle, a new service that lets you pay as much (or as little) as you want for preselected bundles of ebooks, announced on Wednesday that their latest bundle is a collection of writing about video games. Among other things, it includes two books by Jordan Mechner, the man behind Prince of Persia, as well as two issues of Kill Screen.
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Why I am Leaving Two Links in this Curiousity.
First Greg Smith aired his parting grievances with Goldman Sachs in the New York Times, and now M.B. Cluckerton is leaving the Muppets.
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