Over at Broadly, MariNaomi talks about heritage and her graphic memoir, Turning Japanese. Pair with Mia Nakaji Monnier’s Millions interview with the author.
Cultural Confusion
Houellebecq Wins France’s Top Literary Award
Controversial writer Michel Houellebecq finally wins France’s top literary award, the Goncourt Prize, for The Map and the Territory (published in French last September).
Bookstore Fairy
Recommended Reading: On the mysterious benefactors keeping St. Mark’s bookstore alive.
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One Man’s BA is Another Man’s Treasure
Writing for Washington Monthly, Ezra Klein lambasts “the weakness of liberal arts education” and talks about how the Ivy League’s failures have led to Wall Street’s gain.
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First Lines of the New Tom McCarthy
Here are the first lines of the new Tom McCarthy novel, C, forthcoming in September: “Dr. Learmont, newly appointed general practitioner for the districts of West Masedown and New Eliry, rocks and jolts on the front seat of a trap as it descends the lightly sloping path of Versoie House. He has sore buttocks: the seat’s hard and uncushioned.”
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A New Kind of Book Review
A new kind of book review: 5 artists interpret and critique literature through works of visual art.
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John Jeremiah Sullivan on William Faulkner
Do I need to hype this one up? I shouldn’t. John Jeremiah Sullivan writes about William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!, or what some call the “greatest Southern novel ever written.”
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