Earlier this month, I wrote about Louis Menand’s recent New Yorker piece about The Life of Saul Bellow, a new biography of the Nobel laureate by Zachary Leader. Now, in the LRB, Andrew O’Hagan reads the book. Sample quote: “Bellow’s community was his subject and his subject was his voice.”
The Other Saul
Now That’s a Hiatus
Whenever you feel bad, remember: Tessa Hadley didn't believe in her work for twenty years.
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A Literary Wake
In Austin, the Harry Ransom Center and American Short Fiction are hosting a tribute event for J.D. Salinger that will include readings by Elizabeth Crane, Nick Flynn, Amelia Gray, Elizabeth McCracken, ZZ Packer, and John Pipkin.
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Fact-Checking Fiasco
What do you think gets fact-checked the most rigorously: newspaper articles, magazine stories, or books? If you guessed books, you'd be surprised to know that they are rarely, if ever, fact-checked. At The Atlantic, Kate Newman questions why we have so much faith in books' accuracy but why publishers don't bother.
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Recommended Reading: “Seven Days After Father”
Essay Liu's essay "Seven Days After Father" has been translated by Kevin T. S. Tang for Blunderbuss Magazine and presents a daughter's sincere grief confused by custom. "'The funeral director forbids tears as we approach your coffin, but demands that we weep on our return. This is the movie script we’ve been handed, one we’ll be beholden to for days, and I know that many things are not mine to decide anymore. Even our tears have been planned for us."
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Jennifer Egan and Personal Writing
Jennifer Egan recently spoke with Willing Davidson, fiction editor of The New Yorker, as part of Rewiring the Real, a yearlong series of podcasts with writers about the interplay of literature, technology and religion. Rachel Hurn, a former Millions intern, was there and noted Egan's ambivalence towards "personal writing." [Updated to correct the quote] "If writing necessarily meant writing about myself, then I'd rather do something else," Egan said.
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Between a Rock and a Bookless Place
As libraries struggle to survive in the UK, community-based lending libraries are sprouting up to fill in the gaps. The Society of Authors is threatening to take legal action against these libraries after discovering that they are not required to pay any royalties to authors.
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The Klingon Word for Spoon is “baghneQ”
Lapham’s Quarterly has a new podcast about “the weird world of invented languages” such as Klingon, Dothraki, and Esperanto.
Like Moss
“Like moss, my family grew on a mountain. In the utmost northwest of Spain, they set down roots so thick that only despair could rip them out.” Lorena Piñeiro writes at Midnight Breakfast about her family and penance. Pair with a piece on the business of nonfiction.
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