Big Ideas and Bigger Books
Taylor Branch and the NCAA
The New York Times gives Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch a well-deserved profile. I've mentioned before that his take down of the NCAA's corruption is astounding, but now's a good time to mention that his e-book, The Cartel: Inside the Rise and Imminent Fall of the NCAA, is even better. Branch also appeared on Wednesday night's "Colbert Report" to discuss the book.
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“Save Us From Novelists”
"God save us from novelists who want to create role models." Time Out New York has published a new interview with Eimear McBride, whose award-winning A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing was reviewed by our own Hannah Gersen for The Millions.
Temper That Ego. You Need Luck As Well.
A few weeks ago, Benjamin Hale wrote an article for us about the trivialities and happenstance associated with publishing prizes. His point was that legacy was more important than short-lived fame. In a way, his piece is nicely supplemented by Tom Bissell’s essay on the luck and chance necessary to attain literary success.
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Of the Tribe
More than ever, we need literature that gives Westerners a compelling entrée into—a way of better understanding—the lives of war-and-terrorism fraught regions. Over at Bloom, T.L. Khleif, recent recipient of a Rona Jaffe award, writes about Jamil Ahmad’s The Wandering Falcon, a collection that immerses readers in the tribal areas of Pakistan prior to the rise of the Taliban. Among other notable honors, Ahmad joins the pantheon of late-blooming male authors who would not have ever published were it not for the stubborn encouragement of their wives.
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Choose Your Own Literary Dystopia
Which dystopian future is right for you? Kurt Vonnegut’s? George Orwell’s? Margaret Atwood’s? Take Flavorwire’s simple quiz to find out!