Recommended Reading: Don DeLillo’s fiction is “a better guide to the subtleties of terrorism than proclamations of military experts or political academics.”
Marking Territory
Guys Lit Wire Book Fair
Guys Lit Wire is a group blog dedicated to “recommending books for teenage boys.” Twice a year, the group hosts a book fair in conjunction with Powell’s to help school libraries. For the past couple of years, the group has focused on Washington D.C.’s Ballou Senior High School, and this year their fair will run until October 14th. Please do check out the “wish list” and send a couple books in Ballou’s direction!
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Red October
Haven’t heard of Teffi? You can blame that one on the Bolsheviks. The early-20th-century Russian poet, playwright and journalist, whose fans included (oddly enough) both Vladimir Lenin and Tsar Nikolai, had to flee a Moscow in turmoil to avoid persecution as a dissident. Now, several publishers are reprinting her memoir of exile, for which The New Statesman has details and a short biography.
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Introducing/A New Feature
Good news, Twitter poets! The Goddess of 140 Characters decided to let us tweet line breaks. (h/t Slate)
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Author as Commercial Mechanism
Has Edward St. Aubyn killed the existentialist novel? Jacob Kiernan at Full Stop Magazine has a few ideas about it. If it’s existential quandary you’re after, this essay for The Millions on the beautiful afterlife of books–which may not be so much of an afterlife, after all–will be perfect for you.
Writing Every Day
Do you want to nurture your writing? Sign up for the Skillshare online class Creative Writing for All: 10 Days to a Daily Habit, taught by Friendship author and Year in Reading alumna Emily Gould and featuring a 10-day creative writing challenge. Also: enrollment is free through April 12.
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Two Dollar Radio Gets Some Press
Over at Litreactor, Joshua Chaplinsky checks in with Two Dollar Radio, the publishing outfit responsible for Grace Krilanovich’s The Orange Eats Creeps, which was one of my Year In Reading selections last year.
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