“This inconvenient working-class revolution we are now witnessing has been accused of stupidity—I cursed it myself the day it happened—but the longer you look at it, you realize that in another sense it has the touch of genius, for it intuited the weaknesses of its enemies and effectively exploited them. The middle-class left so delights in being right! And so much of the disenfranchised working class has chosen to be fragrantly, shamelessly wrong.” Year in Reading alumna Zadie Smith shares her thoughts on Brexit.
The Brexit Diaries
Please (Don’t) Please Me
Callie Collins sits down with Emily Bell, the editor of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux Originals, in the latest issue of Midnight Breakfast. Bell also published Lucia Berlin’s recent story collection A Manual for Cleaning Women. Bell states: “The voices I publish, they’re not trying to please their readers.”
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Gary Shteyngart, Viral Video Star
It seems like Gary Shteyngart may be embarking on a new career as a viral video star (remember his wacky book trailer for the hardcover of Super Sad True Love Story?). Here he is with Paul Giamatti in a “buddy comedy” touting the paperback.