Over at Buzzfeed, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah travels to James Baldwin’s home in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, and explores his life as an expat. She writes, “Baldwin left the States for the primary reason that all emigrants do — because anywhere seems better than home.” Pair with Justin Campbell Millions essay on Baldwin and fatherhood.
James Baldwin, the Expat
Writing the Self
Laura Bennett writes for Slate about how personal essays are taking over the internet. “I think there is just a very fine line between providing a platform for these writers and exploiting them,” says one editor.
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iShakespeare
Got a smartphone? Check out the new Sonnets by William Shakespeare app to receive 154 poems, scholarly annotations and criticism, as well as special sonnet performances from such notables as Sir Patrick Stewart. Revisiting The Bard of Avon’s verse will prove so pleasurable; you’ll probably forget altogether that he was a self-plagiarist way before Jonah Lehrer.
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Seamus Heaney on the Loyalists
Amid recent revival of sectarian conflicts in Ireland, Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney said he believes there is “never going to be a united Ireland.” He went on to ask, "Why don't you let them (loyalists) fly the flag?"
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Tuesday New Release Day: Carey, Mieville, Murakami
New today are Peter Carey's The Chemistry of Tears and China Mieville's Railsea. And Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 is now out in a snazzy three-volume boxed-set paperback edition.
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Literary Lost
As Lost meanders towards its finale, the LA Times rounds up the plentiful literary influences that popped up during the show's run.
Once Upon A Time
Ignore films like Memento when writing, Steve Almond argues, and instead focus on old-fashioned devices like narrative, plot, and character development.
I Wrote, Yes, But Not That
Uh-oh: Hemingway may not have written his famous six-word story.
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