At the Guardian, Ryan Chapman recounts how Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory resonated with him during the pandemic and helped him navigate our changed reality. “My listlessness ended after I pulled Vladimir Nabokov’s autobiography Speak, Memory from my bookshelf,” Chapman writes, “more or less at random. I first read it 10 years ago and quickly saw the wisdom in the author’s oft-quoted line, ‘One cannot read a book: one can only reread it.’ Nabokov’s remembrances granted reprieve from the new abnormal and—crucially—guidance on how to navigate it.”
Revisiting Vladimir Nabokov’s ‘Speak Memory’ During the Pandemic
Paralyzing Shame
Recommended Reading: Elissa Altman on writing and giving permission to succeed.
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Coming Soon: The Future
Lapham’s Quarterly‘s Food issue was a big hit, but their upcoming Future issue looks promising as well.
Bad News
Whatever your thoughts about the situation in Ukraine, you’ll feel for Year in Reading alum David Bezmozgis, who’s been writing a novel for the past four years that takes place in Crimea. After nearly a half-decade in which few people he talked to even knew where Crimea was, recent events shone a spotlight on the place, which the author had thought of as “locked in a dismal kleptocratic stasis.” (You could also read our interview with the author.)
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Tuesday New Release Day: Yuknavitch; Radtke; Baume; Joaquin; Statovci
Out this week: The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch; Imagine Wanting Only This by Kristen Radtke; A Line Made by Walking by Sara Baume; The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic by Nick Joaquin; and My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
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“I refuse to cater to the bullshit of innocence.”
“I never started out as a children’s book artist. What is a children’s-book artist? A moron! Some ugly fat pip-squick of a person who can’t be bothered to grow up. That’s the way we’re treated in the adult world of publishing.” The Believer interviews the late Maurice Sendak, who passed away last May.
Make Fascism Great Again
“There’s still time to look something else up.” Merriam-Webster pleads with word lovers to prevent “fascism” from becoming its word of the year, The Guardian reports. See also: this Lithub piece about the social media genius behind M-W‘s Twitter feed.
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