Over at Words Without Borders, Marguerite Feitlowitz writes on teaching the art of literary translation. As she puts it, “Bringing texts from one place to another, from one tongue, context, history, and human body to another, is itself a political act. We can tell the history of the world through the history of when major texts have been translated—and where, why, and by whom.” Pair with this Millions piece on literary translators at work.
Teaching in Translation
Uber Nichts
George Bernard Shaw had a strange relationship with Nietzsche. Alternately envious and dismissive of the German philosopher, Shaw once said he wanted to be an intellectual in Nietzsche’s mold, though he also felt Nietzsche’s thinking was addled and self-absorbed. In an essay for The New Statesman, Michael Holroyd tries to make sense of Shaw’s views.
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Combing through Gay Talese’s Laundry…Sort of
Remember that preview for Death to Smoochy, where the voice-over proclaimed, “From the twisted mind of Danny DeVito?” Me neither. But if twisty minds are your thing, you should check out this page from Gay Talese‘s outline for the classic “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” written on a shirt cardboard. (Remember shirt cardboards? Yeah… Me neither.)
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Tuesday New Release Day: Harkaway, Nescio, Lehrer, Kerouac, Galassi
New this week are Nick Harkaway’s Angelmaker (reviewed here), Nescio’s Amsterdam Stories (reviewed here), Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine: How Creativity Works, Jack Kerouac’s “lost novel” The Sea is My Brother, and a new collection of poetry from Jonathan Galassi, Left-Handed.
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Indies Thriving in the Age of Amazon
“While pressure from Amazon forced Borders out of business in 2011, indie bookstores staged an unexpected comeback. Between 2009 and 2015, the ABA reported a 35% growth in the number of independent booksellers, from 1,651 stores to 2,227.” Professor Ryan Raffaelli read this surprising statistic and decided to study what exactly independent bookstores were doing in order to reinvent themselves and thrive. He found it has to do with indies embracing the three Cs; community, curation and convening. The full report will be released in 2018 but you can glimpse a preview here. Three cheers for indies!
Tiny Umbrellas and Baby Carrots
Down with the “mocktail.” McSweeney’s has provided a helpful list of fun drinking games for non-drinkers. This Millions piece on eating and drinking and reading should help to whet your appetite.
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Just Saying…
William Carlos Williams was a poet born for the age of Twitter. Or, rather, his poem “This is Just to Say” is perfect for Twitter parodies. Potato, potahto.
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Proto-Stalin
The world isn’t exactly wanting for character studies of Captain Ahab, but Chris Power manages to come up with a novel analysis of the character in this essay about the Moby-Dick antagonist. In Power’s telling, Ahab was valuable in part for what he told us about the 20th century — namely, he foreshadowed the dictators and despots to come. You could also read Hester Blum’s contribution to this essay about the best American novels.
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