You may have heard that E.L. Doctorow passed away last week. The Ragtime and Billy Bathgate author was known for his mastery of historical fiction. At The Guardian, Michael Chabon offers a tribute, arguing that Doctorow found a way out of the binary trap between postmodernism and realism.
Third Way
In China, my name is Mud.
Chinese citizens are increasingly adopting English nicknames. But, why would anyone choose a name like "Rainman" or "Mud"? The new book In China, My Name is... explores this puzzling phenomena. (Awesome t-shirt, Ben)
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The New Western
“The presentation of himself as a damaged outsider, barely holding on, ups the dramatic ante, though it does seem at odds with the accomplished, balanced, commanding prose he appears able to muster with every sentence — not to mention his prestigious awards and teaching stints.” On Charles D’Ambrosio’s Loitering.
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Talking Covers
What does Jonathan Franzen think of the cover for Freedom? What about Charlotte Strick, the book's designer? Or the photographers that took photos of those trees, of that blue warbler? Talking Covers has collected their thoughts, and plays host to other cover-related conversations besides. Check out this one The Flame Alphabet.
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Bracketologists: Apply Here
With the NCAA’s March Madness tournament winding down, and with The Morning News’s Tournament of Books drawn to a close, you can still indulge your bracketological yearnings by participating in Powell’s Books’s Poetry Madness or by checking out NPR’s Ides of March Madness.
LA Times Lays Off Reviewers
The Los Angeles Times book review laid off its entire staff of freelance book reviewers.
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White Lies
“As adults, we should hold each other’s work to high standards, and our own work to the highest of all. As writers, we shouldn’t settle for a single pale line. But before the poem is written, I say, we should lie to ourselves, the way we lied to that winded child. Before composition, we have to be gods.” Alex Chertok writes about literary pep talks for the Ploughshares blog.
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Keeping the Pace
"A story works when there’s momentum, life behind the words," Mary Miller told Matthew Salesses at The Rumpus. She needs that momentum for her new novel, The Last Days of California, about a family driving to California for the rapture. Also, Amy Butcher wrote about her favorite Millerisms at Hobart.
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If It Is Fine Tomorrow
This list of the ten best weather events in fiction history includes, among other things, the mud in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House and the fraught weather forecast from Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse. Let’s talk a little bit more about weather with this review from The Millions.