For LitHub, Elizabeth McCracken proposes, at last, a unified theory of doughnuts: “Perhaps I cling to doughnuts because doughnuts still exist in the world, though Woolworth’s and Howard Johnson’ses don’t.”
A Unified Theory of Doughnuts
Poetry for Dummies
“To fully understand poetry, familiarize yourself with the elements of a poem, such as meter, which is 3.28 feet.” Katie Burgess teaches us how to properly read a poem for The Rumpus’ Funny Women column.
Meteor Shower
Check out Clint Smith’s poem “Meteor Shower” at the Diverse Arts Project. Not into poetry? We have ten poems for people who hate poetry.
To the Edge of Sanity
Edmund Wilson famously said of the works of H.P. Lovecraft that “the only real horror in most of these fictions is the horror of bad taste and bad art.” In time, however, Lovecraft developed a substantial following, which raises the question of what attracted readers to his work. The answer? “The weird realism that runs through his writings undermines any belief system – religious or humanist – in which the human mind is the centre of the universe.” Related: Ben Dooley on the scariness of House of Leaves.
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Platform Proliferation
The Atlantic points out another consequence of the digital revolution: books now come in multiple formats at dozens of price points. A symptom of publisher panic? A boon for readers?
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Football Book Club: ‘Milk and Filth’
This week the Band of Merry Men/Women that is of Football Book Club is reading Carmen Giménez Smith’s poetry collection Milk and Filth — and posting about Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction. Also: Check in later this week for possible guest posts by Ben Carson and Donald Trump. Also: There will be no guest posts by Ben Carson and Donald Trump.
Dostoevsky Subway Murals in Moscow
NPR reports on the controversial Moscow subway murals depicting violent scenes from Dostoevsky’s books – and the public concern that the murals will make people “afraid to ride the subway.” (via Book Bench)
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Bourdain’s “Gourmet Slaughterfest” Graphic Novel
Guardian reports that Anthony Bourdain is writing a new “gourmet slaughterfest” graphic novel about “ultraviolent food nerds,” intended to be “a cross between Eat Drink Man Woman and A Fistful of Dollars.”
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