“I wasn’t exactly feeling this. Still, I did try to rationalize what I was doing: maybe being altruistic and selfish at the same time was actually a good way to live, making sure sacrifice doesn’t go too far?” A psalm for a selfish hospice volunteer from Andy Mozina over at Electric Literature.
Not Really a Good Person
The VQR’s Winter Issue Is Here
If for some unspeakable reason you didn’t follow my advice when I urged you to subscribe to the VQR over a year ago, then perhaps you need more convincing. Enter: Ron Charles. He’s got a brief preview of the magazine’s Winter Issue, which hit shelves this week, and which contains an essay based on Natasha Trethewey’s Library of Congress speech.
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Next Stop: The Perfect Book
“I don’t want to settle for distraction; I want to look forward to reading my book with the palpitating excitement of a second date with someone I’ve already fallen for. I want to miss my stop. Ideally, I’ll miss a few.” While it can be easy to spot a beach, airplane, or cabin read, Adam Sternbergh‘s writes about finding the perfect “subway read” for the New York Times. From our archives: our own Nick Ripatrazone‘s essay on reading and writing on trains.
Tuesday New Release Day: Frame, London, Stafford, Tennyson, Bennet
Janet Frame’s posthumous novel In the Memorial Room is out this week, as is a new e-book edition of Jack London’s The Sea Wolf. Also out: Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems by the onetime Poet Laureate William Stafford; a new biography of Alfred, Lord Tennyson; and the latest edition of The Best American Magazine Writing.
Good Intentions
“To make money, I’m planning on teaching English, or coaching recreational soccer, or something. But that’s not important because apartments are cheap, and that part, kicking around a ball, or helping Thai children have a better command of the English language, even though I don’t speak a word of Thai, will probably only be a chapter in my book. Those things will provide some nice blog-potential details, too. They’ll show the texture of my everyday life.” Travelling to the East for the sole purpose of writing a memoir.
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Is Fiction the Art of Living?
From the New York Times archives, a 1984 essay “Is Fiction the Art of Living?” by recently announced Nobel Prize winner Mario Varga Llosa: “In fact, novels do lie – they can’t help doing so – but that’s only one part of the story.”
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Literature in Emojis
Slate has translated famous first lines of literature into emojis, and they’re surprisingly coherent. Pair with Jonathan Russell Clark‘s essay on opening sentences.
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