“REPORTER: You’ve reportedly conveyed to Judge Garland that if he comes knocking on your office door he’ll be wasting his time. But would you deign to meet with him somewhere off the grounds of the U.S. Capitol? Say, at a Starbucks? BARTLEBY: I would prefer not to.” This Bartleby, the Senator: A Story of Merrick Garland (not to be confused with the Bartleby, the Scrivener).
I’d Prefer Not To
Another Veselka Novel on the Way
Zazen author Vanessa Veselka announced on Tuesday that she has sold her second novel. Unfortunately, she doesn’t reveal many more details than that, so we’re all going to have to bide our time until then.
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“This music had some kind of hard edge to it”
Spin has ten selected excerpts from David Foster Wallace and Mark Costello’s re-released exploration of hip-hop, Signifying Rappers. (As always, this slideshow warrants the use of ClusterFake’s handy “De-Slide-Ifier.”)
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Take THAT, eBooks!
Writing for Ploughshares, Sean Bishop ranks ten poetry presses by the quality of their cover designs.
Marlon James’s Dark Star Trilogy
A Brief History of Seven Killings author Marlon James was struck by the whiteness of The Hobbit, and in an interview for Entertainment Weekly, he explains it inspired him to write his own fantasy series based on African epic traditions. “It’s sort of like my being a scholar of African history and mythology, and my being a total sci-fi/fantasy geek who rereads things like The Mists of Avalon, they just sort of came together,” James said. He’s targeting a Fall 2018 release for the first book.
A Conch Republic Treasure Trove
A U.S. Navy commodore’s 1823 General Order announcing the imminent seizure of Key West – at the time known as Allenton – has been obtained, along with “1,000 other pieces of the island’s history,” by the Monroe County Public Library. The collection also includes a book from 1858 written by William Curry, “a penniless Bahamian immigrant who became Florida’s first millionaire.” Best of all? You can view some of the cache online.
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Crystal Methods
Curtis Sittenfeld did some interesting research for her latest novel, Sisterland. “I went to this New Age bookstore in a distant suburb of St. Louis. I basically went there and was like, ‘I’m doing research,’ and then I un-ironically bought some crystals,” she told The Rumpus.
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