Albertine Books, the bookshop of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York City, is offering a $10,000 prize aimed at “introducing American readers to the best French-language novels that have been translated into English.” Among the nominees this year is Bardo or Not Bardo by Antoine Volodine, who was recently the subject of a Millions piece.
New Prize for French Literature
“Daytripper is overrun with rich detail”
Dominic Umile takes a look at the Daytripper, a comic by Brazilian brothers Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá. The comic, which was selected recently for les Fauves d’Angoulême – the largest comics festival in Europe – concerns the “volley of riches and failure from the desk of an obituary writer.” As Umile notes, the art of obituary writing experienced quite a popularity surge in 2012. Times public editor Margaret Sullivan wrote about the regularity with which obituaries appeared on A1 in the paper, and the column even warranted the creation of its own dedicated Twitter account.
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Now nothing beneath the bad smelling sky
The Lorax has been stolen from the Dr. Suess memorial sculpture garden.
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Perennial Errata
The New York Times issues a correction note for something they’ve been messing up for 25 years.
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Living with Books
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A Song of Spare Time
As you might expect, the world of Game of Thrones fanfiction is complicated, pornographic and more than a little bit intimidating.
Fighting Words
Mark McGurl author of the book that got everyone talking about MFA programs, The Program Era, mounts a spirited defense against Elif Batuman’s much discussed review of the book. Among his ripostes: “One can be all for the deflation of liberal pieties without being a gleeful ignoramus about it, as though literary journalism needs its own Ann Coulter.” Zing!
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Icon and Author
Louis Menand, Thessaly La Force, Amelia Lester, and David Haglund have come together to discuss the influence of literary powerhouse and cultural icon Joan Didion in The New Yorker’s Out Loud Podcast. Our own Michael Bourne calls Didion America’s Truth Teller in his review of her biography.
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