Iconic illustrations from Ezra Jack Keats‘ The Snowy Day will become part of the United States Postal Service’s “Forever” series. The four stamps will feature Peter, the little brown boy in his famous red snowsuit, in various states of play. See also: our own Edan Lepucki on children’s books and their grown-up counterparts.
“The Snowy Day” Gets a Stamp Series
The L.A. Times Festival of Books
Speaking of festivals, recaps of last weekend’s Los Angeles Times Festival of Books are up at Jacket Copy. Rafael Yglesias took home the top fiction prize for his novel, A Happy Marriage.
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Weird: from wyrd
Odds Against Tomorrow author Nathaniel Rich has three words of advice for would-be writers, and he holds those words to be his personal mantra.
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Anne Carson’s Latest
Anne Carson, author of Nox (reviewed by Jane Alison last year), has a new book out, Antigonick, in which the translator and poet collaborates with an artist and designer to produce an unconventional translation of Antigone. Unfortunately, Amanda Shubert calls it “the first book of Carson’s where … her scholarly impulse barricades textual meanings. Usually it provides a generous way in.” Yet despite its problems, Shubert notes there are still “moments of brilliance,” and indeed the act of “doing Sophocles as a graphic novel … is kind of ingenious.”
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Try, Try Again
We have a lot of prizes that honor well-crafted first novels. But what about the second novel, which is far more likely to be ignored? Herewith, Dan Kois announces that Slate is teaming up with the Whiting Foundation to produce We Second That, a list of under-recognized second novels from the past five years. You could also read our own Bill Morris on the golden age of the second novel.
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Fanged
If you’re wondering why you should read this new essay on Jack London, consider this sentence: “Born in 1876, the year of Little Bighorn and Custer’s Last Stand, the prolific writer would die in the year John T. Thompson invented the submachine gun.” In Smithsonian Magazine, Kenneth Brandt explores the brief life of the author.
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Writing Desire
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