Last week, I pointed readers to a speech by the late James Salter, reprinted by The Paris Review Daily in tribute to the writer after his death. For a fan appreciation, you can read Kevin Lincoln in Hazlitt, who leads his piece with the observation that Salter “wrote sentences you could unfold into paper lanterns.” Pair with our own Sonya Chung’s review of Salter’s All That Is.
All That
How to Treat an “Apocalyptic Hangover”
The second issue of the new journal Music & Literature is a feast for Krasznahorkai enthusiasts and neophytes alike, with some 70 pages of previously untranslated fiction, interviews, and essays, along with critical context on the "Hungarian Master of the Apocalypse." Alas, only George Szirtes' essay and an interview with translator Ottilie Mulzet are available digitally. But the complete analog package is highly recommended.
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Curiosities
Sam Sacks offers up a review of Booker winner The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga for Open Letters"Obama spotted carrying poetry book" - It was Collected Poems 1948-1984 by Derek WalcottThe amazing, exhaustive, 7-part, behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 campaign from NewsweekRahm, Ari, Zeke: Which Emmanuel brother are you?In case you weren't already tired of this... the n+1 vs. the lit-blogs row of early 2007 lands in an academic journal. Our own contribution to the saga is duly noted.Wyatt Mason offers more thoughts on John Leonard (via Conversational Reading)Malcolm Gladwell's latest, The Outliers, hits stores a week from today. Gladwell introduces the book in a video at Amazon (scroll down a bit).Oxford researchers figure out the ten most annoying phrases.And the New Oxford American Dictionary has named its Word of the Year: hypermiling.As we remember Michael Crichton, "The Top 5 'Crazy' Michael Crichton Ideas That Actually Came True"Nam Le wins the Dylan Thomas Prize. We interviewed him in August.
They’re Out There. (Ellos están ahí fuera.)
“Peru's air force is reopening an office responsible for investigating UFOs due to ‘increased sightings of anomalous aerial phenomena’ in the country's skies.”
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North Star
Where did George Orwell come around to socialism? Try the north of England. In a piece in Prospect Magazine, Stephen Ingle recounts the author's journey through industrial Britain.
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Quaker Was Better
Most of the time, when somebody insults a writer on Twitter, the insult disappears into the cyberspace ether. However, as with any rule, there are always exceptions, and one is when you trash Joyce Carol Oates and then thank her for inventing a breakfast food.
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Deft, Masterful
Passionate, intense, fearless … this essay on the history of book blurbs will have you positively clawing yourself with pleasure. We’ve blurbed about blurbs a couple of times here at The Millions.
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The Lonely Writer
What's the best part of writing for Sue Monk Kidd? The solitude. What's the hardest part for her? The solitude. Kidd acknowledged the challenges of writing in a "By the Book" interview with The New York Times. "For me, writing a novel goes on for years, and the solitude goes on, too. It tends to swallow me at times. I know it’s a problem when my husband sends the dog in to retrieve me." Her latest novel, The Invention of Wings, came out on Tuesday and was part of our 2014 book preview.
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