For those who are out of the collegiate loop and are curious what’s being assigned in classrooms these days, The Literary Hub has compiled a fascinating list of books being taught by English professors at institutions across the country. Pair with these two related pieces from The Millions on the business of teaching creative writing and fifty-five thoughts on teaching English in public school.
What They Teach
An Experimental Review of an Experimental Translation
Matthew Jakubowski’s “experimental review” of Yoko Tawada’s Portrait of a Tongue is unlike anything you’ve read in months, and I promise you that.
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Holiday links
Hope everyone’s holiday is going well. I’ll be putting up one or two more “Year in Reading” posts and then The Millions will most likely be dark until the New Year. But first, a couple of links:One of my favorite end of year lists is the bookfinder.com “Top 10 out of print books”: the main list and broken down into categories.Stephen King names his favorite reads of the year, including a forthcoming novel by A.M. Homes. His number one book, which he calls “the best mystery of the decade,” is LBC pick, Case Histories by Kate Atkinson.Millions Flashback: Tis the Season
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“Death to the Minibar!”
Anyone who travels a lot will enjoy Dubravka Ugresic‘s essay on hotel minibars. As a matter of fact, just about anyone will enjoy this essay regardless of how often they travel.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Atwood; Waters; Turner; Robertson; Wineberg; Tierce; Shapiro; Darnielle
New this week: Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood; The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters; My Life as a Foreign Country by Brian Turner; Wallflowers by Eliza Robertson; On Bittersweet Place by Ronna Wineberg; Love Me Back by Merritt Tierce; In the Red by Elena Mauli Shapiro; and Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-half 2014 Book Preview.
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“You were a dream of ice.”
Recommended Reading: Delaney Nolan’s “Buoyed Nets or a Towered Light Spinning”
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Douglas Stuart on Writing in Secret
The Shuggie Bain author grew up in a culture that discouraged boys from reading. His debut novel just won the Booker Prize.
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What Bloggers Owe Montaigne
At the Paris Review Daily, a post on what bloggers owe Montaigne: “There seems no end to the appeal of the essayist’s basic idea: that you can write spontaneously and ramblingly about yourself and your interests, and that the world will love you for it.” (via Book Bench)
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