Mother’s Day has come and gone in the U.S., but maybe you’ve still got mothers on the brain. If that’s the case, The Rumpus has you covered with this extensive list of books to read “when you want to rethink motherhood.” The list ranges from Adrienne Rich’s classic nonfiction work, Of Woman Born, to Ada Limón’s more recent poetry collection, The Carrying—and it includes our own Lydia Kiesling’s novel, The Golden State.
Rethinking Motherhood
The Price of Debt
“I lived alone for three years in Brooklyn, paying $1,700 a month ($61,200 all told) for a pretty but small one-bedroom within eyeshot of the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway. I also spent $400 a month on health insurance. At one point I thought I would find another full-time job after finishing the book, but then I must have convinced myself that teaching yoga part time would better enable my writing.” Emily Gould on poverty and the writing life.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Adrian, Prose, Doyle, Boyd, Grant
It’s a big week for literary new releases. Chris Adrian’s much anticipated new novel The Great Night is now out, as is Francine Prose’s My New American Life. Also new this week are Roddy Doyle’s latest collection of stories, Bullfighting, and the reissue of William Boyd’s impish prank of a book, Nat Tate: An American Artist. Finally, past Booker shortlister Linda Grant has a new novel out called We Had It So Good.
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Secret Space
Recommended Reading: Over at Aeon, Tiffany Jenkins writes about the importance of secrets for a child’s development and in children’s literature.
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Survival of the Sleek in Publishing
In today’s NY Times, former Simon & Schuster executive Joni Evans ruminates on the Darwinian transformation of publishing, from tactile and sensory (paper and fountain-pen stains and typewriter bells) to e-everything (bidding wars and clean desks); she herself picked flight over fight.
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Frog and Toad Are Friends
“Millennials are so frequently hyped as the first digital generation that people tend to forget that we were raised first and foremost with books. TV and the Internet may have shaped our identities, but so did old-fashioned, printed stories.” Everybody is tired of the word “millennial,” but this piece makes some great points about Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad series and how it taught children to understand and appreciate their individuality.
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E.M. Forster’s Prescient Sci-Fi Story
Gabrielle Bellot examines "The Machine Stops," the sole science-fiction story by E.M. Forster, which contains eerie echos of today's socially distanced world.
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Internet’s End
Recommended Reading: Sam Frank’s interview with Infomaniacs author Matthew Thurber.
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Mass(ive) Effect
What effect, if any, are video games having on literature? Tobias Carroll at Hazlitt explores the surprising liminal space between video game narratives and literary fiction. This essay from The Millions is a nice complement.