Is Alejandro Zambra the new great Latin American writer? James Wood thinks he is. In the latest New Yorker, he describes how Zambra’s new story collection alerted him to the writer’s oeuvre, going on to analyze all three of the writer’s novels in English. You could also read our 2011 interview with Zambra.
Brillante
The Joy of Cooking
Saveur Magazine has published its annual top 100 food and cooking joys of the year. This time, it’s a reader-created list, and it doesn’t disappoint, from #12, The Burmese Tea Leaf Salad to #43, College Dining Hall Cooks. (Via.)
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I would like to read one from Maury Povich, no lie.
A report from Book Expo America: “Celebrity memoirs will survive Armageddon.”
Lowcountry Living
Recommended Viewing: John Lusk Hathaway’s “One Foot in Eden or The Battle of Sol Legare” photography series, which features images of “the rich history and modern struggles” of the small Gullah community outside of Charleston, South Carolina.
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The Noughtie List
Kottke.org has taken on the daunting task of rounding up all the “Best of the 2000s” lists out there. Related: Fimoculous is rounding up all the “Best of” lists for 2009.
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The Forgotten Delivery Man
“So much has been written about New York City as a city of histories—rich and public, deep and private. Commerce and bodies ebb and flow. For every New Yorker, there is a ghost city under the tangible one; this second, invisible layer contains the tangled web of memory and geography. I certainly have my fair share of associative ghosts; we all do. But New York City is also a city of forgetting, for better and for worse, and often against our best wishes.” Anna Wiener on the coping strategies of New Yorkers.