At McSweeney’s, preview Michelle Tea’s Castle on the River Vistula, the final installment of her Chelsea trilogy. You could also check out our piece on contemporary YA fiction and talk therapy.
Preview Michelle Tea
The Brexit Diaries
“This inconvenient working-class revolution we are now witnessing has been accused of stupidity—I cursed it myself the day it happened—but the longer you look at it, you realize that in another sense it has the touch of genius, for it intuited the weaknesses of its enemies and effectively exploited them. The middle-class left so delights in being right! And so much of the disenfranchised working class has chosen to be fragrantly, shamelessly wrong.” Year in Reading alumna Zadie Smith shares her thoughts on Brexit.
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Dun-Dun
Planning on writing a prison scene? Worried your characters might sound a bit unrealistic? Then see if you can get your hands on the Bonne Terre dictionary. Written by inmates at a prison in Louisiana, the dictionary includes such idiosyncratic terms as “boat,” meaning a plastic bed, and “pumpkin,” meaning a new inmate.
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Hardcover, Paperback and The Economist
The Economist gives a succinct explanation of "why books come out in hardback before paperback," but their answer feels almost too simple. For a fuller understanding of the paperback / hardback question, pair The Economist's article with Nichole Bernier's Millions piece on "The Point of the Paperback."
Williams on Writing
In an interview with Vice, Joy Williams explains that writing gives her “no happiness”. Pair with an interview with our own Hannah Gersen, who “would have stopped [writing] a long time ago” if she didn’t love it. You could also read Nick Ripatrazone's recent article on fifty reasons to read Williams.
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Ask a Grown Woman
High school girls "Ask a Grown Woman" what it's like to date someone of the same gender. The answer is surprisingly honest.
100 Notable Disappointments
I'm relieved to see I've actually read some of the 100 Most Notable Books of 2011. But Rumpus writer Roxane Gay, is pretty disappointed.
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