“I don’t want to write ‘funny’ books where we all have to laugh our heads of all the time. The humor should come from behind, where we don’t expect it. And the life of a well-known writer is something you can laugh about quite easily.” On the occasion of his new novel Dear Mr. M, our own Claire Cameron interviews Herman Koch over at Salon.
Dinner with Mr. Koch
Rape-Rape
Jenny Diski‘s personal take on Roman Polanski and rape, at the London Review of Books.
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Karen Russell Reads Sleep Donation
Recommended Listening: Karen Russell read excerpts of her new novella, Sleep Donation, for the Missouri Review’s “Soundbooth” podcast.
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British Museum Sound Archive
The Guardian reports that the British Library has made its archive of world and traditional music available online. And it’s free for everyone. What might you hear? “There are Geordies banging spoons, Tawang lamas blowing conch shell trumpets and Tongan tribesman playing nose flutes. And then there is the Assamese woodworm feasting on a window frame in the dead of night.” You might also check out the British Museum’s free online image database. Here you’ll find thousands of images of paintings, etchings, drawings, and artifacts from every country and era of human history, easily searchable by era, country, artist, or subject. In using the database for dissertation research, I also found copyright permissions relatively easy to acquire.
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Fatal
As titles go, it’s hard to get more straightforward than England and Other Stories, the new collection by Graham Swift. In the Times, Michiko Kakutani provides her verdict, lauding Swift for his ability to paint “vistas as panoramic as those in the stories of Alice Munro.”
5 steps to authordom!
So you wanna be an author? Here are 5 painful and incredibly difficult steps to becoming an author, from Craked‘s Robert Brockway.
The Iron Lady Lit
Hilary Mantel is going from the brutal politics of the Tudors to the Thatcher era. Her next book will be a collection of short stories about Margaret Thatcher called The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher and is due out in September.
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Lit Mag Unlocked
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