On middle-aged women’s struggle for visibility.
Invisible Women
Seeing Van Gogh
“‘What pleases the PUBLIC is always what’s most banal,’ he wrote to his brother in 1883. But nowadays Van Gogh pleases the public enormously. So has he become banal?” Julian Barnes reflects on Van Gogh’s life and work and how our perception of him has changed over time in a London Review of Books podcast. Interested in contemporary art? Check out our own Bill Morris’s piece on the Whitney Museum.
●
●
The Bookseller Turned Spy
Avril Haines, the new deputy director of the CIA, had an interesting career before landing in the Langley. According to a Washington Post report, Haines used to own an independent bookstore in Baltimore, where she “welcomed patrons for the occasional readings of high-toned erotica over chicken tostadas.”
●
●
Authorship and Entitlement
A white male poet recently revealed his controversial strategy of using an Asian pseudonym to place his poems, which were eventually selected for inclusion in the Best American Poetry anthology for 2015. Brian Spears writes for The Rumpus about the complications of diversity in publishing, Affirmative Action, and the ethics of poetry submission systems.
I Feel Expository
If we are, as Adam Kirsch writes, in the midst of a golden age of essays, we might want to ask exactly which essays are proof of this golden age. His first three picks -- My Heart is an Idiot, I Was Told There’d Be Cake and Pulphead -- are unsurprising choices, but then it gets a bit more interesting when he looks at Sheila Heti’s latest novel. (You could also check out a few of our pieces on these books.)
Keep It to Yourself
Recommended Reading: Against book lending and borrowing.
●
●