Urmila Seshagiri writes for Public Books about Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words in its original Italian. As she explains it, “the dual-language Italian-English format literalizes the very ‘separazione totale’ that is In altre parole’s subject, reminding us, page by page, of potential losses.” Pair with Hannah Gersen’s Millions review of the book.
Degrees of Separation
Domino Effect
2,131 books and 27 volunteers helped The Seattle Public Library set the record for longest book domino chain earlier this month.
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Shopping’s Scrivener
“I’m used to writing in very weird contexts.” Poet Brian Sonia-Wallace talks with Minnesota’s Star Tribune about his gig as the Mall of America’s first-ever writer in residence. Asked if he’ll go crazy during his several-day-long tenure, Sonia-Wallace answered “probably” (via Bookforum). Our own Marie Myung-Ok Lee had some opinions back when the residency was first announced.
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Writerly Advice
Beat That
Peter Ackroyd, a man who T Magazine writer Jody Rosen calls “[an] insanely prolific, controversial and eccentric novelist and historian,” has published, at last count, nearly 6,500 pages of text. That incredible figure equates to more than fifty books, many of them with titles like Dickens: Public Life and Private Passions. (At present, he’s working on a biography of Alfred Hitchcock.)
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For Jane, Forever Ago
“It’s part of Jane Austen’s genius that she can bring the maximum of drama and momentousness to the most minimal of occasions.” Here is David Denby from The New Yorker on reading (and listening to) Austen’s Emma, which is celebrating its two-hundredth year in print. We’ve brought you a bunch of bits on Austen in the past.
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Finish that book. Finish that burrito.
Our own Mark O’Connell has an excellent piece over on The New Yorker‘s books blog detailing his propensity to abandon burritos books, even good ones, halfway through.
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