“[C]an we finally be bold and listen to the artists and the outsiders and the radicals and the freaks and the avant-garde and the base and the youth and the anarchists and all those who don’t want to do business as usual with the limousine liberalism of both the elite Democrats and Republicans? Can we listen to the dreamers instead of the doubters?” Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen has some big, important questions in The Los Angeles Times.
Can We Try Something Different
An Excerpt from the New Knausgaard
Here’s one for all you Knausgaard fans: Newsday has a short excerpt from My Struggle: Book Three. (Related: if you’re not yet a Knausgaard fan, allow Jonathan Callahan to extend an invitation to the club.)
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Following Franklin
“Who am I in the face of the Universe if not just a bro who wants to get stuff done?” Tim Goessling tried living a day according to Benjamin Franklin’s schedule listed in The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. What was his biggest takeaway? We should self-evaluate and set goals more.
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A Bombing Hits Home
Recommended Reading: On the recent terrorist attacks in Ankara, and longing for home.
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Neo-Luddite
In conversation with New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino, Swing Time author Zadie Smith explained why she doesn’t engage in social media: “I want to have my feeling, even if it’s wrong, even if it’s inappropriate, express it to myself in the privacy of my heart and my mind. I don’t want to be bullied out of it,” according to the the Huffington Post. Read Sarah Labrie‘s essay on social media anxiety from our archives.
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Edge of the Earth
Cheryl Strayed’s Wild is probably the best-known recent example of a memoir that centers on a journey through a harsh landscape. There’s another one that deserves your attention, too — Kathleen Winter’s Boundless, which tells the tale of the writer’s voyage through the icebound Northwest Passage. At The Guardian, a review of the memoir.
Sleeping Like a Genius
Stay up until 4am reading that new release? Dread your early alarm after a night spent with a book? Maybe you’re just on Flaubert‘s schedule. Or, if you find it easy to fall asleep before midnight and enjoy early mornings, perhaps you’re running on Victor Hugo time. New York Magazine has compiled an infographic of the sleeping habits of geniuses, and the good news is that no matter when you fall asleep and wake up, someone brilliant has more or less kept your same schedule. So take heart, late-night readers and early risers. We’re all in good company.
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Equal Rites
Discworld author and “professional morbid bastard” Terry Pratchett has announced that his daughter will in the future take over the long-running fantasy series due to his battle with Alzheimer’s.
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Help Save Langston Hughes’s Home
You can help preserve Langston Hughes’s home in Harlem through this Indiegogo campaign. Pair with our own Tess Malone’s review of Tambourines to Glory.
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