“I write, always thinking about the generations of black women who came before me, who faced racism and sexism head-on, and in spite of it all, did their work. They encourage me not to despair.” For Vogue, author Brit Bennett writes about 2017, racism, Trump, and the forward progression of time. Pair with: staff writer Ismail Muhammad‘s interview with Bennett.
The Right Side of History
Literary Alimentary
"After mixing the drink, sit back and fan yourself with the wide brim of a Kentucky Derby hat." Thanks to Ploughshares, you can impress your friends by serving them The Great Gatsby – to drink.
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Celebrity Memoir Overdose
John Harris at Guardian looks at what reading 11 celebrity memoirs in four days will do to your brain.
The Spy Who Saved Me
How did Ian Fleming come up with James Bond? It’s easy to think, considering the political context of his era, that Fleming tailored his superspy to be the ideal hero of the Cold War. Yet there’s another, more prosaic explanation -- was the author simply having a midlife crisis?
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Roth v. Roth v. Roth
In April's Atlantic, Joseph O'Neill tries to separate Philip Roth from his perpetual themes of family, Newark, and Judaism, and from his many authorial personae. The task proves unmanageable, but the attempt sheds light on the man destined to become Roth's greatest critic: Roth himself.
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“Other creative uses for my fuzzy matter”
Unfamiliar Fishes author Sarah Vowell steps up to bat for this month’s Believer advice column, Sedaratives. She fields questions concerning librarian crushes and dryer lint.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Hannaham; Torday; Essbaum; Horack; Rubin; Landau; Hewitt
Out this week: Delicious Foods by James Hannaham; The Last Flight of Poxl West by Daniel Torday; Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum; The Other Joseph by Skip Horack; The Poser by Jacob Rubin; The Empire of the Senses by Alexis Landau; and The Dynamite Room by Jason Hewitt. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great 2015 Book Preview.
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NO MA’AM: Were You Aware Of It?
Who's afraid of Amazonian masterhood?: NO MA'AM is (National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood).