“Every sense cleared about three hundred percent and stood up on its hind legs waving its feelers.” Eighty years ago, James Agee got an assignment that entered him into history, though not during his lifetime. Let us now celebrate Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. See also: our essay on famous artist-writer collaborations, like Agee’s with Walker Evans.
Let Us Praise James Agee
None Of Us Is Out
“Her only ‘crime’ has been that she has used her ‘freedom of speech’ to attract attention to injustice, because her conscience will not allow her to remain silent.” A campaign calls for the release of Aslı Erdoğan, an acclaimed Turkish novelist currently being held by her government on nebulous charges. Also did you know: our own editor-in-chief, Lydia Kiesling, speaks Turkish?
Amazon Releases Its Best 100 Books of 2012
Amazon is kicking off the year-end deluge of lists with its 100 best books of 2012.
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“The particular loneliness of corporate chain restaurants”
Recommended Reading: Charles Thaxton on Merritt Tierce’s Love Me Back.
“The meteor brought them into the mainstream”
If you’re like me, you thought three quick thoughts when you heard about the Chelyabinsk meteor: 1) I hope everybody is okay; 2) I hope The Possessed author Elif Batuman finds time to write about this; and 3) Thank goodness for Russian dashboard cameras.
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Move It
“These days, nothing says amateur hour quite like an alphabetical bookshelf.” Sloane Crosley does not have packing tips for you, though she does have some book recommendations.
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A Shared Vernacular
Year in Reading alum David L. Ulin writes about how books forged a bond between him and his father. “Books are, have always been, a shared vernacular between us.”
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