It was America’s birthday this week. Celebrate with quintessential American fiction, according to the rest of the world (via LitHub). More of a poetry person? We search for the great American epic.
Celebrating America’s Birthday
I Mean, Why Not?
Two minutes of gorgeous West Indian manatee footage, and you’d better believe I’m linking to it.
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5 Under 35
The National Book Foundation announces its annual list of 5 under 35 writers.
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Lies and Hoaxes and Fake News, Oh My!
“Hoaxers make it seem like things are as bad as we fear they are, and they often, especially now, play on our fears rather than our wishes.” The Rumpus interviewed New Yorker Poetry Editor Kevin Young about the inspiration behind his new book, Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News. Pair with Young’s Year in Reading entry and our review of Bunk.
An Orphaned Bear
“He sat on a shelf of our one-roomed apartment for a while, and then one day when I was sitting in front of my typewriter staring at a blank sheet of paper wondering what to write, I idly tapped out the words ‘Mr. and Mrs. Brown first met Paddington on a railway platform. In fact, that was how he came to have such an unusual name for a bear, for Paddington was the name of the station.’ It was a simple act, and in terms of deathless prose, not exactly earth shattering, but it was to change my life considerably. … Without intending it, I had become a children’s author.” Michael Bond, creator of the Paddington Bear series, has died at 91, reports NPR. We’d like to think that Bond might have appreciated our own Jacob Lambert‘s series, “Are Picture Books Leading Children Astray?” – in particular this entry questioning the moral fiber of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.
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Anonymous Authors
Recommended Reading: Art Winslow asks, “did Thomas Pynchon publish a novel under the pseudonym Adrian Jones Pearson?”
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On Representation
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Mass-Market Edition is Dead
Harper Lee’s estate will no longer allow publication of the mass-market paperback edition of To Kill a Mockingbird, which was popular with schools. Over at The New Republic, Alex Shephard writes that “Without a mass-market option, schools will likely be forced to pay higher prices for bulk orders of the trade paperback edition—and given the perilous state of many school budgets, that could very easily lead to it being assigned in fewer schools.” For more about the author’s legacy, read Robert Rea’s Millions essay on his travels to her home.
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