“Like actual endangered species, independent bookshops induce a fiercely protective kind of love; paradoxically, it’s often their precarity that saves them.” The Guardian profiles Philippe Ungar and Franck Bohbot, the men behind “We Are New York Indie Booksellers,” which features the 50 remaining indies in and around Manhattan. (Pair with: Janet Potter‘s history of bookstore love).
Indie Strong
You Should Move
“By three a.m., the seven of us had drunk a case of champagne, plus two additional bottles, followed by whiskey digestifs for the men. ‘They do this all the time,’ Pierre’s wife Chloe whispered to me in English at one point—dismissively, but without malice. As if to say, sure, Pierre’s relatives were lushes, but perhaps this was how life should be, inévitablement.” I doubt I have to tell you what city this all took place in.
●
●
Lydia Davis, Ctd.
Last year, I pointed readers to Numero Cinq, a new Canadian lit mag with a notably memorable tagline. In the latest issue, which is split into seventeen parts, Benjamin Woodard talks with Lydia Davis about her Flaubert translation, her new story collection and the art of writing while traveling. (h/t The Rumpus)
●
●
Notes on Missouri and America.
“We don’t have to look at Iraq for an analogue to Missouri,” writes Elif Batuman. “We can look instead at Missouri, or elsewhere in the United States.” Indeed for many ordinary Americans, as Jabari Asim echoes in his poem inspired by the recent events in Ferguson, “It’s more than time we had that talk / about what to say and where to walk, / how to act and how to strive, / how to be upright and stay alive.”
Stay Away from the Semicolon
“The Crested Asterisk camouflages itself in poor syntax, relying on this tactic to confuse its predators and prey. It is the only specimen known to cause injury by way of over-emphasis.” Introducing a field guide to rare punctuation.
●
●
Coates: A Public Intellectual
The New York Times profiles MacArthur Genius and National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates as one of America’s foremost public intellectuals. His book We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy (which we have been anticipating for months) is released this Tuesday.
75 Notes for an Unwritten Essay on Literary Prizes
Over on The Busy Signal, Matthew Hunte presents 75 Notes For An Unwritten Essay on Literary Prizes. (22. “Want it? Want it? Of course I wanted it. I wanted it so fucking bad I could taste it!”)
Hollywood Takes on the Business Book
Andrew Ross Sorkin’s financial crisis post mortem Too Big to Fail is slated to get the Hollywood treatment. Curtis Hanson will direct the likes of Paul Giamatti as Ben Bernanke, James Woods as Dick Fuld, and Billy Crudup as Timothy Geithner. (Thanks, Derek)
●
●