A New Kind of Book Review
Nebulous Plotlines
You’ve probably heard it before: never end a story with the phrase “it was all a dream.” Unfortunately for the person who taught you this rule, many classic stories (including Anna Karenina) take place at least partially in dreams. In the NYRB, Francine Prose investigates the trope in fiction.
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Not I
John Clare, “the peasant poet,” wrote wide-ranging poems on rural themes, distinguishing himself from his peers in the 19th-century literary scene in England. In 1830, in the midst of an episode of depression, he wrote a long polemic against the first-person pronoun, in the form of a letter to his friend Eliza Emmerson. In The Paris Review Daily, an excerpt of the letter.
Bookstore Tour Fun
An indie bookstore fan uses our bookstore tour as a jumping-off point for a literary day in Manhattan. You can too.
Keija Pernissen Interview
The Missouri Review‘s Michael Nye sits down for an interview with The Ruins of Us author Keija Parnissen. The book, he says, is his “first must read book of the year.”
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A Community of Introverts
“What I want to know is, since when does making art require participation in any community, beyond the intense participation that the art itself is undertaking? Since when am I not contributing to the community if all I want to do is make the art itself?” Meghan Tifft gives voice to the struggle of the introverted writer in an essay for The Atlantic.
GQ Questions Lorin Stein
Among the breadcrumbs doled out in this GQ slideshow/interview with Paris Review editor Lorin Stein is this: John Jeremiah Sullivan helped him write his job application.