“At first blush, bringing an eight-year-old to one of William Shakespeare’s quirkier plays in an effort to help her see herself, an Asian American girl, in popular culture did seem a rather odd decision.” Nicole Chung for Hazlitt on The Winter’s Tale, representation, and parenting in the age of Trump. And wouldn’t you know it, we have a piece specifically about that very play – “three/fifths wintry tragedy, two/fifths vernal comedy, and wholly a masterwork” – right here.
Whose Tale
Curious Case of the Missing Publishers
What’s going on in Hong Kong? Last week, a man by the name of Lee Bo became the fifth member of the Hong Kong-based publishing house Mighty Current, which specializes in provocative tomes about Beijing leaders, to vanish mysteriously. A few of those missing have been in sporadic communication with worried family members, letting them know in opaque terms that they are “helping with an investigation.”
The Nobel Will Return in 2019
“These elements of scandal, by now familiar in the #MeToo era, claimed an unusual casualty on Friday: The Nobel Prize in Literature, the world’s most prestigious accolade for writing.” In the wake of a sex abuse scandal, The Swedish Academy announced it will postpone this year’s award until next year when they will name two winners. In the meantime, maybe we should all mull over the problem with prestigious prizes.
Twi-Hard
At The Daily Beast, a bounty of Twilight-iana, including an interview with New Moon director Chris Weitz (aka the man who ruined The Golden Compass) and pictures of Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson et al before Twilight.
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First Draft of Infinite Jest
“Behind every great work, there is an ink-stained piece of notebook paper.” Here is the first page of a handwritten draft of Infinite Jest.
The Left Coast On Lefties
Southpaws unite! The LA Review of Books takes on left-handedness. Now, someone use this can opener for me.
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Writing Mirrors
“Here is the trouble with looking for ourselves in the writers whose works we admire, at least if we are proposing to be their biographers. For if we are in search of ourselves, or in this case our own troubled teenaged selves roaming New York, then we are apt to downplay those parts of the life that don’t correspond with that need for recognition.” Anne Boyd Rioux writes about biography and the distance, good or bad, between subject and biographer for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
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Williams on Writing
In an interview with Vice, Joy Williams explains that writing gives her “no happiness”. Pair with an interview with our own Hannah Gersen, who “would have stopped [writing] a long time ago” if she didn’t love it. You could also read Nick Ripatrazone’s recent article on fifty reasons to read Williams.
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