Garrard Conley, author of Boy Erased, writes on shame and queer identity. “Shame would give me the power to submit to almost anything.”
Shame and Queerness
“Der Nister”
Here’s a great article about the underrated Soviet/Yiddish writer Pinkhes “Der Nister” Kaganovich.
Interview with an Innkeeper
Some holiday cheer: John Scalzi offers up an interview with history’s most famous innkeeper.
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On Packing a Library
“Many times, I’ve found that a book I once held in my hands becomes another when assigned its position in my library.” In The Paris Review, an excerpt on the art of packing (and unpacking) a library from Alberto Manguel‘s upcoming book, Packing My Library: An Elegy and Ten Digressions. Pair with: an essay on reorganizing one’s personal library.
Charles Dickens, True Crime Fan
During a bout of insomnia in 1851, Charles Dickens decided to shadow a new addition to the London police force: detectives.
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Art of Life’s Sake
“I do not have experiences in order to write about them. I live in order to live,” Rachel Kushner told New York Magazine. Boris Kachka profiles 2013’s most critically acclaimed author and 2013 Year in Reading participant about what it was like to grow up with hippie parents, riding motorcycles, and her affinity for the art world.
Love Par Avion
Paravion Press, a small press born in a small Greek island’s bookshop, print postcard-sized editions of short stories that are designed to be sent by mail, complete with a page for your correspondence and an envelope. To celebrate their Valentine’s publication of Katherine Mansfield’s “Feuille d’Album,” they’re holding a Romantic Haiku Challenge, whose winner will receive a free copy.
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