Here is Amitav Ghosh in conversation with Michael Berkeley for the BBC Radio3 broadcast about his new novel, Flood of Fire. In the interview, Ghosh talks about his childhood by the water and the influence of the sea on his work. He also curates a playlist of influential music that ranges from Bengali boat songs to Phillip Glass to ‘Hindoo airs.’
Fusion of the Popular
Judy Blume on Tumblr
Judy Blume answered questions about life, writing, and her new book, In the Unlikely Event, on Alfred A. Knopf’s Tumblr on Wednesday. In case you haven’t checked it out, The Millions has a Tumblr, too.
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Presidential Poetry
Much ado was made about “One Today,” Richard Blanco’s inaugural poem for president Barack Obama, but also worth checking out is Paul Muldoon’s “For Barack Obama: His Second Inauguration.”
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“Everybody thinks they’re worth more than they’re being paid”
“I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to jauntily denigrate 27.8 million—that’s the number of American workers who make less than $10.10 an hour,” yet, in The Morning News, a close reading of a few hundred letters to the editor about the minimum wage shows other Americans doing just that.
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Cash, Credit, or Barter?
Trader Joe’s, circa 1877: “It’s always the same complaint: ‘Joe, you don’t have any of the essential items that every other trading post has. Why don’t you have saddles? Or gunpowder? Or basic tools?’ Because I have soy chorizo, that’s why! Because I have chocolate-covered peanut-butter-filled pretzels!”
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Nabokov on the Run
One hundred years ago this week, a teenage boy named Vladimir Nabokov fled revolutionary Russia with his family for the safety of Western Europe.
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