Here’s a simple poll idea we’re amazed we hadn’t thought of before: asking famous writers to pick their favorite words. In The Guardian, Hilary Mantel, Tessa Hadley and others (including Year in Reading alum Eimear McBride) choose their picks for an exceedingly odd vocabulary list.
Flimflam
All She Can Ever Know
“I am writing a book my father will never see. Not in its entirety, not out in the world.” For Longreads, Nicole Chung writes about adoption, family, writing, and finishing her upcoming memoir, All You Can Ever Know, in the wake of her father’s sudden death. Pair with: Julie Buntin‘s Year in Reading entry which feature’s Chung’s memoir.
Authors on Trump
A formidable group of authors, including Year in Reading alum Joyce Carol Oates, Steven Pinker, and Rich Benjamin, comment on Donald Trump’s rise to power. You could also consider this literary cage match between Trump, Faulkner, and Hemingway.
Old-Fashioned
“And now, as an adult, I love nothing more than curling up with a good book, closing my eyes, breathing in through my nostrils, keeping my eyes closed and not reading yet continuing to draw in oxygen for hours, and, thanks to my fetishized olfactory associations for printed and bound matter, becoming sexually aroused.” On the scent that no e-reader can ever replace.
Poetry is Back (or it Never Left)
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