Recommended Reading: This piece from The Atlantic on Marie Kondo and the “privilege of clutter.” While you’re at it, go and read our own Janet Potter’s experience with Kondo’s wildly popular The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
Useable Objects
Read with your Ears
“You can’t read books all the time; trust me, I’ve tried (and like I said to the officer, at least I wasn’t texting and driving).” Simon Lowe chooses his 10 favorite book podcasts for The Guardian. We featured a list of some must-listens earlier this year too.
New Zadie
Here’s a book that’s sure to be included in our second-half installment of our Most Anticipated books: Zadie Smith’s NW, which traces the lives of several people who make it out of one of Northwest London’s housing estates. The promotional copy calls it a “delicate, devastating novel of encounters.”
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James Wood In Person and As a Critic
Anthony Domestico, who studied under James Wood at Harvard, turns in a review of the critic’s latest non-fiction collection, The Fun Stuff. Aside from penning an astute review of the book, Domestico draws from his firsthand experience with Wood to pepper his write-up with details such as this: “While puzzling over a complex passage, he would vigorously rub the top of his head, as if hoping to coax interpretive brilliance from his bald spot like a genie from a lamp.” (Bonus: our own Lydia Kiesling takes a look at Wood’s latest for Bullet Media.)
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100 Notable Disappointments
I’m relieved to see I’ve actually read some of the 100 Most Notable Books of 2011. But Rumpus writer Roxane Gay, is pretty disappointed.
Oh, and congrats, btw.
“I Didn’t Tell Facebook I’m Engaged, So Why Is It Asking About My Fiancé?” or, FB continues to make people feel a little awkward.
Daemon Days
You may have heard (via this site or elsewhere) that Harold Bloom has a new book out. In the Times Sunday Book Review, Cynthia Ozick gives her take, identifying the critic’s use of the phrase “without precedent” as key to understanding his theory. You could also read Matt Hanson on Bloom’s classic The Anatomy of Influence.
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Infinite Boston
Earlier this month William Beutler, a D.C. based writer, started a blog about the landmarks in Boston that inspired the landscape of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. Beutler does a great job chronicling the real-life history of different buildings and explaining how DFW altered them to fit into his novel.
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