The University of Tennessee will offer history students a seminar on Dolly Parton’s life, so this is as good a time as any to revisit Sherman Alexie’s poem, “Ode to Jolene.”
Dolly Parton’s Song Roars with Need / And Envy
All Hail King Brody
Damian Lewis is going from being a traitor of a country to running one. He will star as Henry VIII in the BBC’s adaptations of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. Mark Rylance will play Thomas Cromwell (though previously he’s played another role in the court, Sir Thomas Boleyn.)
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“Louisiana’s heat is inescapable and aggressive.”
The Oxford American just unlocked “Dixie Zen,” Sam Anderson’s piece on Louisiana summers. Last January, Anderson wrote one of the most popular articles in Millions history.
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Reading Roxane Gay
It’s not often that a writer has an essay collection and a debut novel come out in the space of a few months, but that’s exactly the situation of Year in Reading alum Roxane Gay, whose novel An Untamed State and collection Bad Feminist are both getting published this year. At Bookforum, Margaret Weppler reads An Untamed State, which displays, she writes, “a staggering sense of strength, confidence and integrity.”
How Does It Feel / To Wait for a Release Date?
A release date for D’Angelo’s long-anticipated Voodoo follow-up is due any day now, so I really recommend checking out Amy Wallace’s stellar profile of the artist to stoke your interest.
Dial G
“Genius” is a loaded term. Its application usually says more about the person making the judgment than it does about the genius in question. In The Guardian, Sophie Hannah argues that the term isn’t used enough to describe one writer in particular: Agatha Christie. You could also read Daniel Friedman on the terrible secret of all crime fiction.