“It’s a book about fathers that has few good ones on display. It’s a book about language that cannot decide among many. It’s a book about bargains in which no character makes a wise one.” On Aravind Adiga’s new novel Selection Day.
*Cricket*
Ill Will
Did our interview with Hilary Mantel yesterday pique your interest in her latest book? The Times has an excerpt you can read. Elsewhere, Damian Barr (who conducted the interview) pens a response to Lord Bell, who recently suggested that Scotland Yard should investigate Mantel for criminal intent.
●
●
Oh, you were the best of all my days.
Zadie Smith reading Frank O’Hara’s “Animals,” by way of the Chicago based ad and design agency, Coudal Partners, and their voice mail based poetry project, Verse by Voice.
●
●
Summer Poems from Charles Simic
Recommended Listening: Charles Simic reads five new poems for The Southern Review’s summer podcast.
●
●
Winter Reads: The Little House Books
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books bring an icy take on America in winter. To Guardian reader Alison Gibbsme, “as a child, they were full of adventure and excitement; as an adult I am shocked at how full of danger they are.”
●
●
Asian Female Characters in the 21st Century
Read this interview with Mary H.K. Choi where she discusses her novel, Emergency Contact, and how it offers a more modern (2010s) portrayal of Asian American mother-daughter relationships. “Choi’s novel blows up Asian female stereotypes and prods readers to question their own cultural biases about women of color. For instance: Not all Asian moms are like Lane Kim’s in “Gilmore Girls.” Not all of them own antique shops or dry cleaners, care singularly about grades and won’t let their baby tiger cubs date until they’ve finished graduate school.”