“So Be It! See To It!” So you may have already seen this on the literary internet earlier this year, but today’s Friday, and we needed a little infusion of life: enter Octavia Butler‘s amazingly awesome note to self (via the also amazing and awesome Rose Eveleth).
Our New Mantra
Seduction Through Literature
At The Paris Review Daily, Sarah Fay ruminates on her questionable practice of using literature to seduce men: “Wasn’t I just trying to bribe men hungry for something to read? … How could I deliver book recommendations for an entire marriage?”
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Harvard University Press’s Redistribution of Wealth
Flushed with cash after the runaway success of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the Harvard University Press has decided to offer a 20% discount off two dozen works on capitalism and its discontents. Get to it while the gettin’s good.
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Appearing Elsewhere
My “10 Best Songs Based on Books” list, from yesterday’s Observer (UK), is up on the Guardian’s website. Obviously it’s not so much the 10 Best as the 10 Best I could think of while writing the list, but that kind of equivocation makes for terribly unsnappy titles.
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Tiny Umbrellas and Baby Carrots
Down with the “mocktail.” McSweeney’s has provided a helpful list of fun drinking games for non-drinkers. This Millions piece on eating and drinking and reading should help to whet your appetite.
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Writer Etiquette
What’s the one question you should never ask a writer starting a new book: how’s the writing going? “Nothing can damage a novel in embryo as quickly and effectively as trying to describe it before it’s ready,” Mark Slouka writes. Follow his advice for how to keep your writer friends.
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“Twenty feet above sea level”
In his recent collection of poetry, The Americans, David Roderick examines the spaces in which Americans make their homes, calling on his readers to view them in the context of American history. At The Rumpus, Brian Simoneau reviews the collection, which he says illuminates some of his own odd feelings about moving from Boston to Connecticut.
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Let’s Trade Manuscripts
“If you ask around, I’m sure you’ll be able to find a really bad novel easily enough. I mean a novel by someone who has spent isolated years writing a book they are convinced is a great work of literature. And when you’re reading it you’ll know it’s bad, and you’ll know what bad truly is.” What makes bad writing so bad? Toby Litt at The Guardian investigates.