Year in Reading alum Rumaan Alam reflects at The Literary Hub about the labels we ascribe to texts. Pair with his recent interview with Lindsay Hatton.
What is a diverse book?
Thursday Links
Alas, the Tournament of Books is over for my bracket as it was revealed that the “Zombie Round” brought Against the Day and Absurdistan back into the competition. With my finalists now officially out of the competition my bracket is dead, and it looks like I’ll finish in the middle of the pack. Meanwhile, fresh off the Oprah selection shocker (more on that in my next post), I’m think The Road is a lock to win this thing.Book Chronicle has organized an award for litblogs. In my post about book blogs being snubbed by the major blog awards, I argued that book blogs didn’t need to recognized in this way to legitimize them. Still, I do appreciate Book Chronicle nominating The Millions for their award.Harry Potter obsessives can now have a look at the cover for the final book in the series.The Paris Review has given its $10,000 Plimpton Prize for Fiction to Benjamin Percy, for his story “Refresh, Refresh,” which is excerpted on magazine’s Web site.Tom Bissell reviews Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close at Wet Asphalt.
America’s First Bohemians
Recommended reading: Brandon Ambrosino interviews Justin Martin, author of Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America’s First Bohemians, about, well, Walt Whitman and America’s first bohemians.
Eudora Welty: 27 Portraits
Before publishing her first story, Eudora Welty worked as a WPA photographer to document the effects of the Great Depression on rural Mississippi. Today, some of her portraits from this time are on display at the Wiljax Gallery in Cleveland, MS. You can take a look at some of them online courtesy of the gallery and The Oxford American.
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The Brothers Carrotmazov Was Taken
I’m not sure if you guys heard, but Elif Batuman joined Twitter a few days ago, and promptly seized the sweetest user alias on the site.
Medvedev’s America
Kirill Medvedev’s “America: A Prophecy” has been published for Triple Canopy as part of the “Immaterial Literature” project. The suite, translated by n+1 editor Keith Gessen, is composed of pieces from the Russian poet’s forthcoming It’s No Good collection.
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