Curious what the Obamas will be reading over Christmas? The Scrutinizer in Chief stopped by Upshur Books in Washington, D.C. on Small Business Saturday to selected a nice little haul for the winter break with titles ranging from Jonathan Franzen’s Purity to Rachel Renée Russell’s Dork Diaries 1: Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life.
ROTUS
“Daytripper is overrun with rich detail”
Dominic Umile takes a look at the Daytripper, a comic by Brazilian brothers Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá. The comic, which was selected recently for les Fauves d’Angoulême – the largest comics festival in Europe – concerns the “volley of riches and failure from the desk of an obituary writer.” As Umile notes, the art of obituary writing experienced quite a popularity surge in 2012. Times public editor Margaret Sullivan wrote about the regularity with which obituaries appeared on A1 in the paper, and the column even warranted the creation of its own dedicated Twitter account.
Like, Stop
Those of you who remember the hubbub surrounding “vocal fry” will probably not be surprised to learn that, generally speaking, articles that slam the way women speak pop up at least once a year.
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Kickstarting The Riveter
That Kickstarter is offering more opportunities than ever to literary projects, from Coffee House Press’s Catstarter to the Joan Didion documentary to the Reading Rainbow spin-off, is indisputable. Now there’s yet another worthy cause turning to the crowd-sourcing platform in search of an audience: The Riveter, a magazine of longform journalism by women.
The Afterlife of David Foster Wallace
“Wallace’s status has rapidly evolved from marginal writer, noted for long, experimental work, to indispensable reference point for people writing about almost anything—from college football to WikiLeaks.” On the powerful afterlife of David Foster Wallace.
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“It is difficult to make a living”
“There is a possibility of your having a decent attitude toward people and work. That alone may make a man of you.” Wise words from Sherwood Anderson.
Japan’s “National Disease”
It’s hard to believe that the country containing Aokigahara, or “The Suicide Forest”, has for so long ignored its abundance of clinically depressed, “overworked” citizens, but Junko Kitanaka, in her book Depression in Japan, explains exactly why that’s happened.
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Poetic Prayer
“I’m interested in character. I’m especially interested in how language—story, memory, names, word choice—reflects and reveals character. The language of the Catholic Church—the liturgy, the prayer, the gospels—was in many ways my first poetry. ” Year in Reading alumna Alice McDermott discusses her short story, “These Short, Dark Days,” published in the latest The New Yorker.