“Their staff is always sharp, and they seem to cover politics more robustly now. But through the 1960s there were so many political trends they ignored, pretending to be focused on craft and art for art’s sake.” An interview with Joel Whitney about his forthcoming book Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World’s Best Writers, which tells the story of how the intelligence agency helped found The Paris Review. With this backstory in mind, you may read the journal’s author interviews in an entirely new way.
A Murky Origin Story
Harry Potter V. Willy the Wizard
Lit crit becomes a legal matter: “The contrast between the total concept and feel of the works is so stark that any serious comparison of the two strains credulity,” wrote the English judge who has dismissed the case against J.K. Rowling brought by the estate of Willy the Wizard author Adrian Jacobs. Jacobs’ estate claimed that Rowling had plagiarized elements of Willy the Wizard‘s plot in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
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Literary Icons Interview Each Other
Year in Reading alum Margaret Atwood interviews Louise Erdrich. They discuss Canada, reproductive rights, their hopes for the future and writing messy characters in a dystopia. Find it in Elle.
RIP MCA
Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch AKA MCA has died at 47, due to cancer. Pitchfork has more.
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Kurkov’s Penguins
Anthony Olcott takes a look at the crime fiction — and penguins — of Andrey Kurkov.
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“That’s Just My Life and It Seems Quite Normal to Me.”
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Tala Tubaris
Want to be as brilliant as Jonathan Swift? Try reading Latin for ten hours a day. As this New Statesman review of Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World makes clear, the satirist went through a backbreaking classics regimen at Kilkenny College in Ireland. (There’s also the fact that he wrote constant letters to a sickly female confidante.)
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Sasha’s Favorite Albums
Sasha Frere-Jones, who you may know from his work at The New Yorker, has listed his favorite albums of 2011, and even put together a Spotify playlist of some of his favorite singles. Isn’t that nice of him?