Recommended reading: Brian Patrick Eha‘s goodbye to Brazenhead Books, published in the New Yorker. Pair with J.T. Price‘s piece on the closing of Brazenhead for The Millions.
Goodbye to Brazenhead
Tragicomic
Recommended Reading: Helen Vendler on John Berryman. You could also read Stephen Akey on Berryman’s collection The Dream Songs.
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Wordless Novels
“There is a saying that has become a cliché: ‘Pictures speak louder than words.’ But sometimes, a picture can speak louder than words because it contains a profound silence. It’s what a picture does not say that can often make it loud. What is, after all, a wordless novel but a novel devoted to the message of silence?” On Frans Masereel‘s My Book of Hours, a wordless novel in woodcuts. For another, lighter perspective on the power of picture books, pair with Jacob Lambert‘s “Yet Again, I Ask: Are Picture Books Leading Our Children Astray?“
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Comparing Hatchets
The Omnivore has announced the shortlist for its the Hatchet Job of the Year Award, honoring “the author of the angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review of the past twelve months.” Worthy candidates all, though we note that our review, written by Holloway McCandless, of Michael Cunningham’s By Nightfall is perhaps even more trenchant than (and was published over a month before) Adam Mars-Jones’ shortlisted review, which, like ours, found Cunningham’s endless references to the literary canon tiresome.
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Poetry Anonymous
There are a lot of reasons to start writing poetry, but McSweeney’s gives you a list on when to put the pen down. “You were witty that one time while drinking wine at book club” is not an excuse.
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Murakami’s Latest is Flying Off the Shelves
Haruki Murakami’s latest book – the title of which translates to Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and the Year of His Pilgrimage – went on sale in Japan last month, and in that time it’s been selling over a million copies a week. You can catch a glimpse of the book’s first and earliest reviews over at the NY Daily News. (By the way, did you know Murakami translated The Great Gatsby into Japanese?)
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Your Thoughts on Painters?
“Writers are not often great lovers but pathological inventors of explanations. Sex induces a kind of cowardice in them, a fear of experimentation, of being vulnerable, of stepping naked onto the stage to examine all the presumptions that pass without question when everyone still has their pants on.” Michael Thomsen makes the case that dating writers is a bad idea.
Ah, the Humanities!
Nicholas Dames is a wonderful writer, and I suggest you read his essay on the “crisis” in the Humanities.