At the Cut, writers including Alexander Chee, Emma Straub, and Samantha Irby discuss how rejection has shaped their writing careers. Sigrid Nunez notes that it’s almost synonymous with the craft. “Rejection is an enormous part of a writer’s life,” she says. “It’s just the way it is. There are so many people out there wanting to show and sell their work. It’s easy to get lost and very difficult to get attention. As you would expect, I found it very discouraging, but I was also prepared for it because I knew writers. I knew what the life was like, and I knew that the only thing that you could do, if you really wanted to do this, if you really wanted this life, you had to accept that it came with a certain amount of rejection.”
Sigrid Nunez on Rejection and the Writer’s Life
After the Storm
Ten years after hurricane Katrina, Fatima Shaik reflects on freedom of expression, gentrification, and the state of education in New Orleans. You could also check out Gary Rivlin’s Katrina: After the Flood, featured in our 2015 nonfiction preview.
Comedians Talk Writing Books
It may feel like you’ve been saying more and more books lately written by comedians. And your initial hunch would be correct, publishers are increasingly buying books written by comedians. Nylon explores why this is the case.
Fairytales Revived
Fans of Hans Christian Andersen, a new edition of The Little Mermaid was published on Tuesday. Artist Yayoi Kusama has illustrated the classic fairytale.
Sun Ra’s True Birthday
Seth Colter Walls shares some Sun Ra tracks while commenting on the conclusion of his Arkestra’s tour in Lincoln Center. As always, any piece about the musician is enriched with a reading of Jake Adam York’s poem, “At Sun Ra’s Grave.”
Tuesday New Release Day: Levine; Birch; Wieringa; Boland; Plumly
Out this week: My Lost Poets by Philip Levine; Orphans of the Carnival by Carol Birch; These Are the Names by Tommy Wieringa; A Poet’s Dublin by Eavan Boland; and Against Sunset by Stanley Plumly. For more on these and other new titles, go read our latest fiction and nonfiction book previews.
●
●
Foreign Policy Magazine’s Guide to The Stars
Want to know what David Petraeus‘ favorite book is? How about Jared Diamond‘s? Foreign Policy Magazine collects book recommendations from 142 (?) prominent thinkers and public figures.
●
●
Isabelle Eberhardt, Dependent on Chance
The Paris Review's excellent column, "Feminize Your Canon," returns with Isabelle Eberhardt, a cross-dressing Swiss explorer and author who published under a male pseudonym as a teenager.
●
●
●
Sehgal and Adichie in Conversation
In the introduction to her interview with the author, the inimitable Parul Sehgal described Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s latest novel, Americanah, as “a thrilling and risky piece of writing that takes on taboos, shatters pieties, and combines forthright prose, subversive humor, and a ripping good story.” If that doesn’t sell you, I don’t know what will.