Charles D’Ambrosio‘s Loitering has officially made it into our Hall of Fame. It was also a finalist for the PEN award for the Art of the Essay. Now the book’s preface is available on the PEN website, just in case all the book’s popularity and prizes haven’t yet convinced you to read it.
By Way of a Recommendation
LeBron James, Cleveland and the Personal Essay
“No one in his or her right mind would read James’s essay in order to vouch for or against its literary quality, but I am here to do just that.” Ryan Lejarde parses LeBron James‘s “I’m Coming Home” for The Rumpus and comes to myriad conclusions about sports, literature, and what it means to love Cleveland.
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Is It Now.
With texting and instant messaging perpetually on the rise, the world’s punctuation is starting to evolve. At The New Republic, Ben Crair identifies an odd new consequence of this change: the period is now a sign of anger.
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Two New Leslie Jamison Books on the Way
Leslie Jamison, whose collection Empathy Exams was widely praised on The Millions, has earned a two-book “mega” deal with Little, Brown. The new deal promises to deliver another essay collection entitled Ghost Essays, as well as a work of “narrative nonfiction” entitled Archive Lush. (Bonus: We interviewed Jamison for the site last May.)
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52 Years Since Lolita
52 years since Lolita: The Reader’s Almanac recounts the many publishers who turned down Nabokov’s masterpiece in 1953. From one rejection letter: “I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.” (via @ElectricLit)
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More on Myers
Yesterday, I wrote that I “[had] yet to read a comprehensive debunking” of B.R. Myers. For those still interested, I’ve been directed to some candidates: Meghan O’Rourke (2001), Daniel Green (2007), the Washington City Paper (2010, concerning neocon ideology and the shadowy RAND corporation), and part I of Steven Moore‘s The Novel: An Alternative History.
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Cather People
For The New Yorker Alex Ross describes the role Nebraska’s prairies played in Willa Cather’s writing, his encounters with Cather people, and how he became one himself. “From this roughshod Europe of the mind, Cather also emerged with a complex understanding of American identity. Her symphonic landscapes are inflected with myriad accents, cultures, personal narratives—all stored away in a prodigious memory. “
Two Tumblrs Worth Seeing
Consider these two Tumblrs as late additions to my three-part (one, two, three) taxonomy of literary blogs. Writers at Work is three years in the making, so we’re a bit late to the party, but Erasing Infinite, which creates erasure poems out of each page of Infinite Jest, looks like it’s got a long way to go before it’s finished.
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