Harper Lee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman, died this morning in Monroeville, Alabama at the age of 89. Lee won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for Mockingbird, which later formed the basis of a film starring Gregory Peck. To learn more about her legacy, you could read our own Michael Bourne on the hidden character of Atticus Finch, or else read Robert Rea on a pilgrimage he took to her home.
RIP Harper Lee
As I Sit Writing
"I had invented a writing table out of a wheelbarrow in the coal bunker, just beyond a wall from where a dynamo ran. It made a deep, constant humming noise. There was no more work to do until about 4 a.m., when we would have to clean the fires and get up steam again." The University of Mississippi power plant where William Faulkner wrote his self-styled "tour-de-force" As I Lay Dying is slated to be demolished. Here's a nice, complementary piece on slowing down to read Faulkner.
Nabokov Pitches Hitchcock
Remember that time Vladimir Nabokov pitched Alfred Hitchcock a melodramatic love story about a girl and an astronaut? No? Read all about it.
●
●
Poor Options for Refusal
For most people, Mario Puzo’s The Godfather is the beginning and end of mafia books, the sole notable entry in a sparse and little-known genre. That’s why it’s helpful that Roberto Dainotto, in The Guardian, published this list, which includes The Godfather, Eric Hobsbawm’s Primitive Rebels, and Alexander Stille’s Excellent Cadavers, among other picks.
●
●
Tuesday New Release Day: Hashimi; Torné; Leo; Bullough; Warren
Out this week: A House Without Windows by Nadia Hashimi; Divorce Is in the Air by Gonzalo Torné; The Gentleman by Forrest Leo; Addlands by Tom Bullough; and Liberty Street by Dianne Warren. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half Book Preview.
●
●
Voting is open for the 3QD Prize
Voting is open for the 3 Quarks Daily Literature Prize! We are proud to tell you that nine essays from The Millions have been nominated, alongside over 50 other worthy contenders. Take a look, and don't forget to cast your vote!
Why Book Critics Matter
Let us now praise professional book reviewers, like them or not. And speaking of reviews, Niall Ferguson threatens the L.R.B. with legal action over a negative review of his new book, Civilization (via).
●
●
Five Symptoms
Recommended Reading: Maddox Pratt on battling depression and writing a long work of hypertext literature.