Ernest Hemingway, “the godfather of long-form” nonfiction? Richard Brody argues so in the New Yorker, citing Hemingway’s autobiographical, and wildly ambitious, The Green Hills of Africa.
Long-form Godfather
Recommended Reading: “Seven Days After Father”
Essay Liu‘s essay “Seven Days After Father” has been translated by Kevin T. S. Tang for Blunderbuss Magazine and presents a daughter’s sincere grief confused by custom. “‘The funeral director forbids tears as we approach your coffin, but demands that we weep on our return. This is the movie script we’ve been handed, one we’ll be beholden to for days, and I know that many things are not mine to decide anymore. Even our tears have been planned for us.”
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Sun Ra’s Avant Poetics
UbuWeb has posted an excellent collection of avant jazz and poetry from Sun Ra and his famed Arkestra. Much of the suite dates from a 1977 on-air performance in Philadelphia. (Bonus: An excerpt from “At Sun Ra’s Grave” by Jake Adam York.)
140 Characters or Less
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Tuesday New Release Day: Gaiman; Baxter; Morris; Hannah; Swanson; Cooper; Handler; Boyne; Duchovny; Link
Out this week: Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman; There’s Something I Want You to Do by Charles Baxter; Bon Appétempt by Amelia Morris; The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah; The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson; The Marauders by Tom Cooper; We Are Pirates by Daniel Handler; A History of Loneliness by John Boyne; Holy Cow by The X-Files star David Duchovny; and Get in Trouble by Kelly Link. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great 2015 Book Preview.
Revolutionary Word
Lewis Lapham, namesake and founder of Lapham’s Quarterly, has compiled a “revolutionary reading list.”
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New Prize for French Literature
Albertine Books, the bookshop of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York City, is offering a $10,000 prize aimed at “introducing American readers to the best French-language novels that have been translated into English.” Among the nominees this year is Bardo or Not Bardo by Antoine Volodine, who was recently the subject of a Millions piece.
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Insult to Insult
“Who was Bret Easton Ellis describing when he tweeted: ‘The best example of a contemporary male writer lusting for a kind of awful greatness that he simply wasn’t able to achieve’?” The Guardian has a delicious quiz of literary putdowns. And speaking of fighting, let’s talk about books about violence.
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