“Titus Andronicus is a hideous play…. In other words, it’s one of those tragedies that was just crying out for an illustrated edition.” View Leonard Baskin’s grotesque etchings of Titus Andronicus in The Paris Review.
A Hideous Play
Can’t-Do Spirit
“America has always been able to countenance beggars, short-con men, and nine-to-fivers who just can’t get ahead, but we’ve never known what to do with the type of person who could have been really big but chose not to make the concessions required.” The Believer takes a look at the paradox of Nelson Algren.
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Astonishment!!!
The Toast has compiled a list of 18th century book titles and they’re almost funny enough to make us wish people still wrote books like them. Standout titles include Astonishment!!!, The History Of A Dog. Written By Himself, And Published By A Gentleman Of His Acquaintance. Translated From The French., and the mysterious The Polish Bandit; Or, Who Is My Bride?
You Are There
In writing her novel The Last Neanderthal, which published this week, Millions staffer Claire Cameron relied on Jane Smiley’s motto for writing historical fiction: “you are there.” Bonus: Don’t miss our interview with Cameron, in which she describes her many “life-long obsessions.”
Dmitry Samarov on Writers No One Reads
Hack author Dmitry Samarov is this week’s guest blogger at Writers No One Reads (which we’ve mentioned before). In his first post, Samarov takes a look at the work of Willard Motley, who grew up in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood in the early 1900s, and is most well-known for his 1947 bestseller, Knock On Any Door.
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Our New Enemy
The new issue of The Enemy is out, and it’s got some goodies which may be of interest to Millions readers. Among them are two new poems by Ruth Ellen Kocher, who won the 2014 PEN Open Book prize; an appraisal of the value of bad art by sociologist Alison Gerber; and a reassessment of the MFA by Beckett Flannery.
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A Medieval Guide to Children’s Table Manners
Children have been naughty for centuries—if you want proof, check out this recently digitized medieval manuscript from the British Library.
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