“There tends to be this idea that every piece and every assignment and every gig is always something speaking from the soul. We think that about great writers, that they’re incapable of doing hackwork.” The Rumpus interviewed Michelle Dean about women writers, the research process, and her forthcoming book, Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion. Pair with: Dean’s 2016 Year in Reading entry.
Staying Sharp
New Releases
Elizabeth Kostova’s follow-up to The Historian is out today. The Swan Thieves was one of our “Most Anticipated” books. Also out today is Day out of Days, a collection of stories by Sam Shepard, and Game Change, an account of the 2008 presidential race from John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, a pair of big name political reporters.
The Banning of ‘Persepolis’ Spawns a New Legacy
The story of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis and its banning in U.S. libraries will be recounted in an upcoming graphic nonfiction work from Jarrett Dapier and AJ Dungo.
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Stir Gently
Cookbooks, in general, are resistant to close reading, if only because their authors are barely present in the text, if at all. Yet sometimes we can discern a personality through the measurements and shopping lists. At Page-Turner, Kathleen Alcott reads the cookbooks of Nigel Slater. Pair with our own Hannah Gersen on reading cookbooks as literature.
Hateship, Movieship
The trailer is out for the film adaptation of Nobel laureate Alice Munro’s Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. The film will star Kristen Wiig, Guy Pearce, Hailee Steinfeld and Nick Nolte among others.
The Half-Seen Thing
“My process for writing is the same, regardless of form: I abandon my children, I become a horrible husband, and a half-assed teacher. That’s what it all has in common.” Adam Johnson interviewed for Tin House in conjunction with the release of his new collection of short stories, Fortune Smiles.
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The Old-New Journalism
“The repetitions, the ellipses, the onomatopoeia: All the markers of Wolfe’s stylistic DNA were adaptive mutations to a competitive climate, search-engine optimization for the typewriter age.” Here’s an interview with Tom Wolfe about his new novel, Back to Blood, which is receiving mixed reviews.
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