Year in Reading alumna Roxane Gay and Yona Harvey will be writing a comic book series for Marvel alongside Ta-Nehisi Coates. The Black Panther companion series will be titled World of Wakanda.
New Black Panther Comic
Branching Out
Is it possible to read fiction by an actor without thinking of them as the character that made them famous? It’s a question many people asked when reading James Franco, and it’s a question they’re likely to ask again when reading One More Thing, a new book of short stories by The Office star B. J. Novak. At Open Letters Monthly, Justin Hickey reviews Novak’s collection.
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Jante Law
Recommended reading: Michael Booth writes for The Paris Review about the work of Danish author Aksel Sandemose and the “enduring mark on the national character” his satirical Jante Law has left.
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You Do the Math
This week we learned Gary Shteyngart is at work on a memoir. This week is also when the annual Dachshund Spring Fiesta takes place in Washington Square Park. Has viral marketing reached its nadir?
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No More McNuggets
Back in 2011, our founder C. Max Magee pointed to the fan art of Chris Ayers, who was inspired by DFW’s Infinite Jest. Now, Ayers has a new series, drawn from Margaret Atwood’s MaddAdam trilogy, that illustrates the corporate horrors of the trilogy’s fictional dystopia. Pair with Vanessa Blakeslee on Atwood’s In Other Worlds.
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Dark Matter
Next week, Martin Amis will publish Zone of Interest, a dark new novel that takes place, like his earlier Time’s Arrow, in Nazi-occupied lands during the Holocaust. In this week’s New Yorker, Joyce Carol Oates reviews the book, suggesting that Amis is most compelling when he writes as a “satiric vivisectionist.” You could also read our own Mark O’Connell on Lionel Asbo: State of England.
The Rise of the Insta-Poet
How do I love thee? Let me turn the contrast down and put a Valencia filter on it. Instagram poets like Lang Leav and Tyler Knott Gregson may be the future of poetry–but is their work deserving of their massive followings?
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