Ben Parker has published a review in The Los Angeles Review of Books of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle: Book Four, which was recently translated by Don Bartlett. Read Knausgaard’s thoughts on repetition and its reflections in the natural world at The Millions.
My Struggle Continues
Welles and Wells
Orson Welles and H.G. Wells talk to one another, and now you can listen thanks to the magic of YouTube. (via)
●
●
To Locate One’s Place in the World
●
●
Raven Leilani on Unapologetically Writing Towards Want and Rage
Raven Leilani discusses her desire to write Black women who actively resist conforming to society's preconceptions about them.
●
●
●
Holy Land
In the 1880s, a group of rural Illinoisans formed a Christian sect that believed that a local woman, Dorinda Beekman, was the new Jesus Christ. When Mrs. Beekman died, a follower of hers claimed that her spirit lived inside him; as the new leader of the sect, he moved his followers into a barn and named it Heaven. At The Paris Review Daily, Dan Visel looks back on this odd chapter of history, as well as the novel it inspired. (Related: Eric Shonkwiler on the literature of the Midwest.)
Against Wunderkinds
Recommended reading: Alexander Chee‘s essay “Against Wunderkinds.”
●
●
Garth Greenwell on Being a Mystery to Yourself
Garth Greenwell discusses the narrator of his two novels, who repeatedly "undergoes a process of coming into self-knowledge."
●
●
●
Doing the Academic Stuff
“You’re never going to write well for a wider audience if you think it’s less worthwhile, less difficult than doing the academic stuff.” Jo Livingstone interviews David Wolf, commissioning editor of The Guardian Long Read.
●
●
The Strand Says Goodbye
“By the time Mr. Bass bought the building for $8.2 million in 1997, the Strand had become the largest used-book store in the world.” Fred Bass, the owner of the Strand, has died at the age of 89. Bass — who bought used books with panicked fervor, opened up satellite kiosks, and created the fabled literary quiz for prospective employees — turned his father’s used bookstores into a New York City literary landmark.