“All the rage and mourning and angst works to exhaust you; it eats you alive with its relentlessness.” The New York Times‘ Jenna Wortham on self-care during a summer rife with violence against people of color.
Black Bodies Matter
Amazon’s Top Book Lists
Amazon has churned out a number of top books lists this year. We’ve already mentioned the Editors’ Top 100 Books, but there’s also the Customers’ Top 100 Books, the Top 10 Literature and Fiction, the Top 10 Cookbooks, and the Top 10 Science Books.
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TQC Launches E-Book Series
The Quarterly Conversation is kicking off its new “Long Essays” e-book series with Lady Chatterley’s Brother: Why Nicholson Baker Can’t Write About Sex, and Why Javier Marias Can.
All Songs 24/7
Wow, NPR, this is kind of amazing: “A non-stop mix of every song ever played during the 10 years of All Songs Considered.”
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Leave It To TV
Recommended Reading: this piece from Electric Literature on how 80s television broached topics that we’re still afraid to talk about today. Here’s a bonus piece on reality television, as well.
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Are Book Blurbs Helpful or Harmful?
Man Booker judge Colin Thubron expressed frustration with gushing book blurbs, which he says “almost blackmail” readers: “you’re either intellectually or morally incompetent if you don’t love this book or you’ve failed if you haven’t understood it.” Our own Bill Morris tackled the age old question—”To Blurb or not Blurb”—a few years ago.
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“Medvedev is Russia’s first genuinely post-Soviet writer”
n+1 posted the introduction Keith Gessen wrote for Kirill Medvedev’s It’s No Good poetry and essay collection, which Gessen translated along with Mark Krotov, Cory Merrill, and Bela Shayevich.
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The Art of the Novella
Taylor Antrim at the Daily Beast explores the art and business of the novella, and offers up a few recent “unexpectedly revelatory” suggestions.
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“Depression has a peculiar texture”
Recommended Reading: Larissa Pham on Michael Cunningham’s The Hours. You could also read Holloway McCandless on the author’s By Nightfall.
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