For Elle, authors Kali Fajardo-Anstine and Mieko Kawakami interviewed each other with the help of translators, discussing their books Sabrina & Corina and Breast and Eggs, as well as the importance of finding your audience. “I have had the pleasure to meet Chicanas and mixed women from Toronto to L.A. who feel as though their reality is represented in my stories,” Fajardo-Anstine says. “They tell me beautiful things: ‘I’ve never seen my family name in a story before,’ or, ‘Your work encouraged me to ask my grandma about her life.’ Some readers from more privileged backgrounds, I’ve noticed, can find my stories unrelentingly sad, while readers from communities that have experienced historic trauma often find my stories hopeful, for they bear witness to our common experiences. There’s power in documentation, even if hard to look at.”
Kali Fajardo-Anstine on Representing Different Realities
Curiosities: The King of Pop
Appearing Elsewhere 1: Be sure to check the Tournament of Books on Monday for Max’s judgment. Which will be the victor, Shadow Country or The Lazarus Project?Appearing Elsewhere 2: Check out Millions contributor Emily’s review of D.J. Taylor’s Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London’s Jazz Age at The Washington Times.Further Reading: Many additions have been made to The Millions’ Collaborative Atlas of Book Stores and Literary Places. Don’t forget to add your own favorite spots.”Inventor Paolo Bizziocchi proposes that it would be easier to read text if it were sloped downhill from left to right.” And he has a patent!Michael Jackson is auctioning off a whole bunch of his possessions April 22-25 in Beverly Hills. The catalogues are entitled King of Pop: A once in a lifetime Auction Featuring the Personal Property of Michael Jackson. Definitely curious.Following up on the D.T. Max profile of David Foster Wallace (on which Garth weighed in), Max has answered some questions at the New Yorker website.The longlist of Orange Prize nominees has been announced and we’re happy to see that debut novelist and Millions Year in Reading contributor V.V. Ganeshananthan is one of them.Book clubs are supposed to be for books, even if you’re in elementary school.
The Body in the Library
At The Atlantic, Sara Polsky wonders if library cards are dying and discusses their history and evolution. Pair with this Millions essay on private libraries and what books reveal about their readers.
Appearing Elsewhere
Bet you didn’t know this Saturday was the 25th anniversary of the first “going postal” shootings in Oklahoma. I have a piece at The Morning News examining America’s export of this peculiar brand of spree killings around the world, most recently to Oslo, Norway.