“Mario purchased pickup trucks from which he removed panels and lights. The trick was packing the drugs in a part of the vehicle where the body wouldn’t lose its hollow sound when slapped.” These two sentences just got author Dan Slater‘s new book Wolf Boys banned from Texas prisons, inadvertently calling attention to Banned Books Week. Pair with two of our essays about controversial reads.
Apparently Too Real
Avatar in Russia
James Cameron just can’t win with the Reds. Not just the Chinese communists, but the Russians, as well, have taken issue with Avatar‘s politics.
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What’s A Guy Got to Write to Get a Bridge Named After Him?
Frank McNally investigates the “dark forces at work somewhere” that prevent Flann O’Brien from being honored with a Dublin bridge. Perhaps we should all start a grassroots campaign to send Mark O’Connell’s O’Brien tribute to Irish civil engineers.
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Greed is Good Again
There’s a trailer out for the upcoming sequel to Wall Street. Gordon Gekko and his giant mobile phone are back. He is joined, regrettably, by Shia LaBeouf.
A Confession
Cat Marnell and Alana Massey both have new books out, and they are, in their own ways, variants on the genre of “confessional” writing. In an essay for Slate, Katy Waldman unpacks their essential appeal and their arguments, describing how each goes about the task of reinventing the concept of the memoir. You could also read our interview with Massey.
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Tuesday New Release Day
The new release schedule is slowing down as the holidays approach, but David Foster Wallace fans can now get their hands on his undergraduate thesis, packaged by Columbia University Press as Fate, Time, and Language: An Essay on Free Will.
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