“One of the advantages to being a novelist is removing oneself from the chatter of the fray and trying to get a read and a historical context on what’s happening in one’s own time.” The Guardian interviews Rachel Kushner about women’s prisons, remorse, and her new novel, The Mars Room. Pair with: our review calls Kushner’s latest a “brutal, unforgiving, and often grimly funny tour de force of wasted lives.”
Life on Mars
A Voice of Gravitas
Claire Vaye Watkins’s essay on pandering has gotten a lot of responses, including one from Man Booker Prize winner Marlon James. Over at NPR, they discuss the issues of sexism and racism in publishing, cultural ventriloquism, narrative authority, and more.
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The Written World
The Written World is a five part radio series put together by Melyvn Bragg as part of the In Our Time BBC radio project. The programs look at the history of written word, and how it has shaped our intellectual history.
Tuesday New Release Day: Ng; Kwok; Moses; Scheft; Ahmad; Fitzgerald
New this week: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng; Mambo in Chinatown by Jean Kwok; The Appetites of Girls by Pamela Moses; Shrink Thyself by the Letterman staff writer Bill Scheft; The Last Taxi Ride by A.X. Ahmad; and the Cambridge University Press edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Taps at Reveille.
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Not These Titles, Please
Looking for the perfect title for your short story / essay / novel / whatever? We wish you the best of luck, and also suggest you don’t pick one of these severely overused options.
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“Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?”
In a piece for Oxford American, Mark Edmundson has an important message for incoming college freshpersons.
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