“There’s this sense of guilt that my writing career is going well because black people are being killed. I’ve reached a point where I don’t know if I have anything new to say. It’s the same narrative over and over.” Debut novelist Brit Bennett gets profiled for The New York Times about The Mothers, which we included in the list of October book releases we’re most excited about.
Writing as Advocacy
Theories of Theories of the Novel
In the Boston Review, Jess Row wades – slowly, interestingly, not always coherently – into the perpetually roiling waters of Theory of the Novel, taking on the canon wars, realism vs. the avant-garde, etc. Is it really “a safe bet that your average well-informed critic today has never read a single work of criticism by a writer of color?” Probably not, even granting Row’s exception. But possibly worth arguing about. If you like that sort of thing.
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E-Books Rise Up
Are e-books more than just a publishing platform? Could they be “a whole new literary form“?
Edan Lepucki’s Other People Pod
Our own Edan Lepucki sits down with Brad Listi for an Other People Podcast. If for nothing else, listen to them discuss Facebook addiction. Their discussion starts around the eleven minute mark. (P.S. you should also check out both Edan and Brad’s Year in Reading posts.)
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No Rest for Rowling
Flavorwire reports that J.K. Rowling is working on two new novels, one under her own name and one under her crime writing pen name, Robert Galbraith. See also: that time Elizabeth Minkel had extremely strong feelings about Rowling’s internet activity.
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Founding Father, Remixed
George Washington as you’ve never seen him before: First, a cartoon entitled “Cox and Combs” and second, a live action avant garde take on the founding father.
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A Plate of Spaghetti
“A trip to the 21st century. Prague, maybe, or London, some big city where he can wander around being a bored tourist, snapping his gum, picking his nose in cathedrals, snapback on crooked and hopping from foot to foot, looking for a basketball court.” Thats what it would look like if Achilles (and other sad literary characters) got the holidays they deserved.
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The Morning News Tournament of Books
Emma Straub declares Julian Barnes‘s Sense of an Ending fitter than Donald Ray Pollock‘s The Devil All the Time in the opening round of The Morning News Tournament of Books.