Two newlyweds who hated The Little Prince held their marriage reception in the restaurant where Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote the book. Read about how their experience changed their opinions of the book. You could also read our own Matt Seidel’s essay on non-traditional marriage proposals in literature.
Love and The Little Prince
A Taste of Saudade
Carol Hughes to Write Memoir
Ted Hughes’s widow, Carol Hughes, intends to write a memoir about her marriage to the former poet laureate.
●
●
Famous Authors’ Pseudonyms
At The Washington Post, Tawny Tipples (not his real name) takes a look at famous authors' pseudonyms, and why modern writers continue to hide behind them. (via Book Bench)
●
●
Knausgaard: Horror and Delight
The third volume of Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle was released on Tuesday. In a recent review for The Daily Beast, Ted Gioia argues that "we read [My Struggle] with horror and delight, because the protagonist—who is Karl Ove Knausgaard himself—is determined to reveal every embarrassing and shameful detail of his past life. Imagine a literary novel with grand Proustian ambitions, but combined with the ethos of those creepy Jackass-type reality shows in which contestants get a dose of renown by making fools of themselves. That’s the spirit of My Struggle." For a second opinion, be sure to check out our own review of the novel's earlier installments.
●
●
Looking Grim
You could spend a long car ride thinking about about all of the books that are currently outselling Rand Paul’s newest, Our Presidents & Their Prayers: Proclamations of Faith by America’s Leaders. According to data obtained from Nielsen BookScan, Paul’s book has sold less than 500 copies in two weeks. For reference, the end of Michelle Bachmann’s ill-fated 2012 presidential campaign was foreshadowed by her book, Core of Conviction, selling just a few thousand copies in the same time that it has taken Paul’s to sell hundreds.
●
●
Cleanliness Is Next To Literature
"Chekhov’s contemporaries wondered: What sort of Russian writer was he? He had no solution to the ultimate questions. With no 'general idea' to teach, wasn’t he more like a talented Frenchman or Englishman born in the wrong place?" (And our own Sonya Chung argues that personal character was in fact his "general idea.")
●
●
POTUS Picks
For its November issue, Wired asks guest editor President Obama for a list of his 10 essential books. The magazine estimates that reading all of them, including James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers, and Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, will take only eighty-nine hours.
●
●