“For example, I don’t feel that catharsis in a play necessarily takes place during the course of a play. Often it should take place afterward.” The Paris Review offers a manuscript page from playwright Edward Albee, who died this past weekend. See also: this amazing piece of lore behind the titling of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
In Memoriam, Edward Albee
Murakami’s Jazz
Haruki Murakami's love for jazz is no secret - he used to own a jazz bar, he's written full essay collections on the music, and his books are peppered with references to jazz songs and musicians. How fitting, then, that there's finally a playlist of jazz songs mentioned in Murakami's writings. Pair with our many past essays on Murakami.
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NBCC Award Winners Announced
The National Book Critics Circle Awards were announced last night, and the winners might be familiar to Millions readers: last year, our own Matt Seidel reviewed fiction prize winner The Sellout, and the Football Book Club read Maggie Nelson's winner in the criticism field, The Argonauts. Head on over to The Guardian for more details.
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2013 (Indie and Poetry) Book Preview
Justin Daugherty supplements our massive 2013 Book Preview with a short list of upcoming indie and small press titles. Elsewhere, Craig Morgan Teicher lists some of the coming year's most exciting poetry. Anything you’d add to either list?
2012 Costa Book Award Winners Announced
The 2012 Costa Book Awards (PDF), which recognize books by writers in the UK and Ireland, were awarded yesterday in the Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children's Book categories. Interestingly, each category was won by a female author. Three cheers for Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies, Francesa Segal's The Innocents, Mary M. Talbot's Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, Kathleen Jamie's Overhaul, Sally Gardner's Maggot Moon.
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Archipelago Interview
Bibi Dietz interviews Jill Schoolman, founder of Archipelago Books, about "the archipelagic quality of book translation, the spiritual quality of discovering a great text, and the best bookshops from here to Buenos Aires." So, basically everything we would ask Jill Schoolman about if we got the chance. The full interview up at BOMB Magazine.
Family Tree
"Every evening we spent an hour and a half in the drawing-room, and, as far back as I can remember, he found some way of amusing us himself...many of the great English poems now seem to me inseparable from my father; I hear in them not only his voice, but in some sort his teaching and belief," Virginia Woolf wrote of her father for his biographer, but who was Leslie Stephen, exactly?
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Choosing Covers
It's not often that a major publisher listens to a new author when they request a specific painting be used for their book cover. But they listened to Naomi Jackson, and over at the Literary Hub she explains her choice of cover art for Star Side of Bird Hill and the Caribbean significance behind it.