Blackout, the recent memoir by Sarah Hepola, chronicles the author’s long struggle with reckless drinking. The title references the total loss of memory she experienced after some of her worst benders. At The Morning News, Rosecrans Baldwin talks with Hepola about her book, amnesia and the nature of memory.
What Happened
On Zadie Smith and Barack Obama
Electric Literature’s blog The Outlet begins a series of essays with the question: “Is Zadie Smith the Barack Obama of literature?”
A Finalist in Our Midst
Sometime Millions contributor Bezalel Stern has been named a finalist in this week’s New Yorker cartoon caption contest. We think he’s got a chance at winning this thing.
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Dispatch from Italy
Over at Asymptote Journal, Aamer Hussein discusses three well-kept Italian secrets who aren’t Elena Ferrante. Pair with Cora Currier’s Millions essay on reading Italy through Ferrante’s books.
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Galileo’s Taste; Galileo’s Work; Galileo’s Life
Can Galileo’s literary preferences teach us about “the unusual and creative features of his physics?” John L. Heilbron thinks so.
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Dating Woody
Diane Keaton writes in her upcoming memoir, Then Again, that “Going out with Woody Allen was like being in a Woody Allen movie.”
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An Amis For Us All
If this was the Summer of Martin Amis (which seems to have been the case), then prepare yourselves for the coming Fall of Kingsley Amis, courtesy of the folks at the New York Review of Books Classics and Vol. 1 Brooklyn.
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Translation Matters
The Guardian reports that translated literary fiction sold almost twice as much as English-language fiction in the UK last year.
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