From McSweeney’s: These opening remarks made by John Hodgman at a literary reading shortly after September 11, 2001. This study on the literature of 9/11 from A-J Aronstein at The Millions is a sobering, related piece.
Only Humbled
Approaching Your Literary Heroes
“Why can’t we keep our literary heroes where they belong, at the top of the bookshelf next to all the others? And why must we ache for their approval, their admiration, their love?” Alex Gilvarry posts about writers who dare to approach their literary heroes for the Paris Review Daily.
Limning in 140 Characters
A satirical Michiko Kakutani Twitter presence has emerged, and the (allegedly) real critic has some guesses as to the doppelgänger’s identity. EDIT: Lindsay Goldwert’s helpfully rounded up the gossip.
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One of Ireland’s Lesser Known Sons
For those aching for more Ireland in the wake of Bloomsday, here’s a piece about noir-master Raymond Chandler’s childhood in Waterford.
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The real Daisy Buchanan
“The poor boy losing the rich girl is a common theme in Fitzgerald’s work, and the original model was surely his relationship with Ginerva King.” AKA the real Daisy Buchanan, who, might I note, looks nothing at all like Carey Mulligan.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Lewis, Saramago, DeWitt, Ondaatje, Enright, Hoffman, Harrison, Barnes, Adria, Hawkins
Michael Lewis’s last book made our Hall of Fame. Now he’s back with a new book that widens his focus to the financial dramas around the world with Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World. Also out this week, Jose Saramago’s posthumously published Cain, Helen DeWitt’s long-awaited Lightning Rods, Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table (reviewed here), Anne Enright’s The Forgotten Waltz, Alice Hoffman’s The Dovekeepers, Jim Harrison’s The Great Leader, and Booker shortlisted The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. Also out: From the master of “molecular gastronomy,” The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adria and, as noted in our recent piece “What Ever Happened to the New Atheism?” The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins.
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Paradoxical Rocket-Science Shit
This review of Paul Murray’s newest novel, The Mark and the Void, praises Murray for his biting, weapons-grade one-liners and calls it “the funniest book ever written about the international banking system.” Here’s a link to our own, particularly hilarious interview with Murray.
Positively Freudian
Chances are that your mental image of Pavlov is that of a man giving commands to a barking dog. However, as a new biography makes clear, the doctor who brought us his very own adjective has a far more complicated legacy. In The New Yorker, Michael Specter writes about the man behind the bell.
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