The world’s oldest multicolor print book has just been opened for the very first time, and what does one do with a never-before-seen artistic treasure? Scan and upload it to the internet, of course.
Never Before Seen
How to Be A Writer
“Facing the daily avalanche of stories about outrageous corruption, writing about timely political issues can often feel pointless. It can be easy to lose faith in the creative process.” For LitHub, an essay by Tom McAllister on writing about politically-charged traumas with humanity and his new novel, How to Be Safe. Pair with: our 2010 interview with McAllister.
A People’s History
After thirty years, Larry Kramer has finished his novel The American People, which he prefers to consider a new form of nonfiction. In the novel, a narrator based largely on Kramer writes a historical expose, also titled The American People, in which numerous American icons are described as having been gay. As Kramer says, he wrote the book in part out of a feeling that gay people are excluded from history books.
“One story shook the Soviet Union.”
Writing for the BBC, Steve Rosenberg looks at the lasting impact and significance of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which was published fifty years ago this month.
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Faulkner and the Black Arts Movement
Frank Kovarik explores the controversy over whether Faulkner was racist and why Faulkner was singled out for these charges.
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When James met Wilde
Oscar Wilde: a “fatuous fool,” a “tenth-rate cad,” and an “unclean beast?” According to Henry James, all of the above.
The Thirsty North
Newsflash: people in cold states drink a lot more than people in warm states.
Reconsidering Jane
A scholar studying Jane Austen’s original manuscripts finds “we have simply overestimated her as a perfect English stylist at the expense of how experimental she was.”
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