Apparently the confessional poets hated being known as confessional poets. Writers like John Berryman and W.D. Snodgrass responded badly when given the label. How do we understand their shared revulsion to the term? At The Paris Review Daily, an argument that we can find the answer in an unlikely place: The Twilight Zone.
You/Are Entering
Top Longreads of 2011
They say you’re only as good as the company you keep. If that’s the case, we’re thrilled to have published Jim Santel‘s piece on The Moviegoer, which has made The Awl staff’s list of “Top Longreads of 2011“.
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Curiosities
It’s not online but “The Boy Who Had Never Seen The Sea” by newly named Nobel laureate Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio appears in this week’s New Yorker. See our recent guest post about publishing Le Clézio.In last week’s New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell was back, this time talking about “genius.” His guinea pigs were Ben Fountain and Jonathan Safran Foer.The headline says it all: “Karl Marx’s book sells as Germany economy sinks.””The _______of________“The fall issue of The Quarterly Conversation has arrived.
Longreads
This January, Penguin Random House, Goodreads, Mashable and the National Book Foundation are sponsoring National Readathon Day, a holiday which encourages Americans to join together for a marathon reading session. If you’d like to take part, you can start a fundraiser to help support reading education, or else enlist your friends and family to read with you on January 24th from noon to 4 p.m.
Keeping Tabs
The F.B.I. had a massive file on James Baldwin in the fifties and sixties. Among other things, their notes featured passages of surprisingly adept criticism, including an oddly in-depth look at sexuality in his work. You could also read Justin Campbell on race, fatherhood and Baldwin’s fiction.
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Il Maestro
Everyone knows that Joyce grew up in Dublin, but few people know that he spent much of his life in Italy. At Open Letters Monthly, you can read a long piece on his years in the city of Trieste. (You can also try your hand at our quiz.)
On Better Halves (or Twentieths)
Wondering what it’s like to have twenty different personalities? Kim Noble can tell you — she’s published a memoir on the topic.
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New York City on Fire
The trailer for City on Fire, Garth Risk Hallberg’s highly anticipated 944-page debut novel, is finally here. The trailer features a new song by Paul Maroon and Year in Reading alumnus Hamilton Leithauser. Also check out the opening paragraph of the novel.
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