Over at Asymptote Journal, Aamer Hussein discusses three well-kept Italian secrets who aren’t Elena Ferrante. Pair with Cora Currier’s Millions essay on reading Italy through Ferrante’s books.
Dispatch from Italy
“But I can tell you about my kitchen.”
At The Nervous Breakdown, Antonya Nelson interviews herself. She reveals why she writes stories, and describes her new novel, Bound, due out this fall.
Recommended Reading
Elissa Schappell’s quick-witted book criticism now has an online presence with the debut of her Vanity Fair column, Just My Type. First up: a look at new fantasy fiction and a consideration of genre-bending novels, with a winning recommendation of Ann Beattie’s Mrs. Nixon.
Rest in Hell
Say goodbye to Binky and Sheba, everybody. After 32 years, Matt Groening pulled the plug on his Life In Hell comic last week with this installment. If you’re unfamiliar with the strip, you can play a round of catch-up by scouring this German website’s 70-strip archive.
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Reading Dickens in Lagos
George Packer at Lapham’s Quarterly writes of meeting a young Burmese reader of Charles Dickens: “‘All of those characters are me,’ [he] explained. ‘Neither a British nor American young man living in the twenty-first century can understand a Dickens as well as I can…I am more equipped to understand Dickens than modern novels. I don’t know what is air conditioning, what is subway, what is fingerprint exam.’” (via Book Bench)
Thomas Pynchon Adaptation Gets a Release Date
Paul Thomas Anderson’s cinematic adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice now has an official release date. That’s right. Starting December 12th, you’ll be able to catch Joaquin Phoenix starring as ‘60s stoner P.I. Larry “Doc” Sportello.
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Down South
“We’re both gay boys from the south, and we both write about growing up in places that deny the value and dignity of LGBTQ lives.” Garth Greenwell and Garrard Conley are headed to North Carolina! It’s not too late to catch the duo as they hit the second leg of their reading/anti-HB2 events across the Old North State.
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Library in the Cloud
Amazon has unveiled its Kindle Lending Library. Prime subscribers can now “choose from thousands of books to borrow for free including over 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers – as frequently as a book a month, with no due dates.”
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20 Rules for Writing Detective Stories
“Secret societies, camorras, mafias, et al., have no place in a detective story. To be sure, the murderer in a detective novel should be given a sporting chance; but it is going too far to grant him a secret society to fall back on. No high-class, self-respecting murderer would want such odds.” -From the much-quoted 1928 essay by SS Van Dine, noted art critic and mystery writer, on the 20 rules for writing detective stories. (via Guardian)
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