This essay by Mensah Demary for Electric Literature on Nas and the literary legitimacy of hip-hop is the best thing you’ll read this morning. “Nas is a world-class storyteller and practitioner of the narrative form,” Demary writes, “I don’t understand why there isn’t more discussion around hip-hop’s literary value among today’s millennial-and-boomer intelligentsia.”
It Ain’t Hard To Tell
Tuesday New Release Day: Messud, Ausubel, Hill, Sjón, Powers
New this week: The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud, A Guide to Being Born by Ramona Ausubel, NOS4A2 by Joe Hill, and three newly translated books from by Icelandic author Sjón: The Blue Fox, The Whispering Muse, and From the Mouth of the Whale. New in paperback is The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers.
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“My awareness and relationship with covers began nearly a decade ago.”
Craig Mod’s superb take on book cover design in the digital age, “Hack the Cover,” is really worth the read.
New Documentary on James Salter
Checkerboard Films has produced a new documentary film on James Salter, “James Salter: A Sport and a Pastime.” You can see Nick Antosca and myself, waxing admiringly, as the “young literary voices” who’ve been influenced by Salter.
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An Unusual Inheritance
“They were still dressed for the funeral when their inheritance showed up.” Granta magazine has a new short story by Amelia Gray, whose literary rise we considered back in 2012.
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Sit Down, Stephen Fry.
Stuart Jeffries at The Guardian: Stephen Fry gives stand-up comedy a go at the Royal Albert Hall but doesn’t quite have the punchlines for it.