Many people, cities, and states recognized Indigenous Peoples Day instead of Columbus Day on Monday. The New Inquiry takes a look at indigenous history in America. Pair with our review of Laila Lalami’s The Moor’s Account, which “underscores the notion that history often dismisses crucial voices.”
Indigenous Peoples Day
Motherless Brooklyn on Screen
Edward Norton has wanted to adapt Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn since it came out, but finding financing was almost as difficult as solving Frank Minna’s murder. Now, Brett Ratner has agreed to fund the film with Norton directing and starring as Lionel Essrog.
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A Tale of Murder
Over at The Atlantic, Terrence Rafferty claims that women are writing the best crime novels. “Their books are light on gunplay, heavy on emotional violence. Murder is de rigueur in the genre, so people die at the hands of others—lovers, neighbors, obsessive strangers—but the body counts tend to be on the low side,” he writes. Pair with this Millions piece on novels where women are true detectives.
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Martin Luther King Jr.’s Occupy Lessons
Does Washington D.C. still have enough revolutionary spirit to drive the Occupy movement to the impossible-to-ignore phase of Resurrection City? Even after Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, his message of economic equality presses on.
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Save the Adverb (Heroically)!
“It reminded me once again that we desperately lack a full-throated defense of this runt of the grammatical litter. We need an outright celebration of adverbs, and it is that celebration that I offer—stridently, boisterously, unapologetically.” Colin Dickey at Slate passionately, unabashedly defends the adverb.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald on YouTube
F. Scott Fitzgerald reads from Othello (via The Missouri Review), John Keats, and John Masefield.
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Karen Russell Reads Sleep Donation
Recommended Listening: Karen Russell read excerpts of her new novella, Sleep Donation, for the Missouri Review’s “Soundbooth” podcast.
Writing About Home in Pittsburgh
A nice complement to Edan’s essay today about writing in Los Angeles, The Metropolis Case author Matthew Gallaway writes about the challenges of representing his home city of Pittsburgh in his fiction. “For starters, there’s the question of accuracy.”
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