Recommended Reading: Tim Ellison writes for Ploughshares on Boston’s founding literary figures. Pair with Adam Kelly’s Millions essay on Boston’s geography in Infinite Jest.
Boston Writers
Arrested Development Meets Academia
“Dr. Kristin M. Barton is seeking proposals for an edited volume … which will explore Arrested Development from a scholarly perspective,” reads a call for submissions on H-Net. I can see the titles of these essays now. Can’t you? “Desperation Economics: There’s Always Money in the Banana Stand” or “I Don’t Know What I Was Expecting: An Exploration of Dead Doves and Tragicomedy.”
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“I did most of my reading at the International House of Pancakes.”
David Sedaris chats with The New York Times about his reading habits in the first installment of their latest series, "By the Book."
Boy, Girl, Book?
Is the practice of using writing as a metaphor for birth, or birth as a metaphor for writing, in need of an overhaul? Stephanie Feldman for Electric Literature has some strong opinions on the subject. Motherhood on the brain, now? Check out this moving essay for The Millions on mothers and sons by Rachel Basch.
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True Women
If you thought True Detective needed more women on it, check out our list of recommended female detective books, or read Helen McClory's flash fiction piece from the perspective of the dead girl, "Pretty Dead Girl Takes a Break."
From the Mixed Up Files of DFW
Newsweek takes an "infinitely fascinating quest" through David Foster Wallace's just-released archive at University of Texas' Harry Ransom Center.
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On the Bro’d
“I first met Dean not long after Tryscha and I hooked up. I had just gotten over a wicked fucking hangover that I won’t bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with a six-foot-five douchebag and a beer bong... Before that I’d often dreamed of going West to see hot LA actress chicks and try In N’ Out burgers, always vaguely planning and never taking off.” - From On the Bro’d, where every sentence of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road is retold for Bros. (via The Rumpus)
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The 250
You may not have known that Thomas Jefferson - author of the Declaration of Independence, U.S. President, founder of the University of Virginia - also found time to amass the largest contemporary collection of books in North America. For sixteen years, The Library of Congress has been trying to track down copies of the final 250 listed in Jefferson's collection.
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