Georgy Manaev investigates the pen names of famous Russian writers, from Maxim Gorky to Chekhov. Pair with this Millions piece on literary names that are hard to pronounce.
Masters of Names
By the Book
Lin-Manuel Miranda, the mind behind Hamilton, joins The New York Times to talk about the literature that has inspired him. Check out Janet and Mike’s thoughts on Hamilton in our Book Report.
“Maybe a mixtape will help.”
Recommended Reading: Rafe Posey’s Rumpus essay, “Coming Out, Again and Again, in 27 Easy Steps.”
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Adichie Hints at Americanah Film
Now that we’ve casted the film adaptation of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, we’d like to turn your attention to Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie’s Americanah, which may be involved in an upcoming collaboration with Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o. Adichie framed the possibility this way in a recent interview: “I’m going to do the mysterious thing and say that Lupita might be making an announcement very soon.”
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iMortality
What would happen if you had a clock to countdown the exact number of days until you died? Our own Mark O’Connell discovers the paranoia of having the Days of Life app measure his mortality at The New Yorker. “Days of Life functions like a reductio ad absurdum of the logic of personal productivity. The pie chart becomes a special way of being afraid: an image of the self as a micro-economy of numbered days.” For a more uplifting version of O’Connell, check out his 2013 Year in Reading post.
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The Thing About Author Interviews
“Most writers … don’t ask questions of a journalist,” writes How to Read a Novelist author John Freeman. But what of those that do? Over the course of a fifteen year career, Freeman has found that “what the novelists asked of me told me [a great deal] about them,” and that a big problem with the standard format for author interviews, after all, is that “the conventions of the interview deprive us of one thing a novelist does quite a bit, which is ask questions.” (Bonus: Freeman will be in conversation with Jennifer Egan Thursday night at McNally Jackson.)
Quark Winner
Big congrats to Millions staff writer Edan Lepucki whose essay “Reading and Race: On Slavery in Fiction” has come in second for the 3 Quarks Daily Arts & Literature Prize.