At the Guardian, Jane Smiley discusses the author she turns to when she needs something comfortable and reassuring: Anthony Trollope. “No matter what I’m reading or rereading,” Smiley says, “I am intrigued and reassured by Trollope’s insights into the minds of both men and women, as well as the undercurrent of good humour that runs through all the books (including one of my favourites, He Knew He Was Right).”
Jane Smiley on Comfort Reading Anthony Trollope
“This music had some kind of hard edge to it”
Spin has ten selected excerpts from David Foster Wallace and Mark Costello’s re-released exploration of hip-hop, Signifying Rappers. (As always, this slideshow warrants the use of ClusterFake’s handy “De-Slide-Ifier.”)
●
●
Something To Think About This Sunday
Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo author Mark Bowden explains the “hardest job in football” in this Atlantic article from 2009.
●
●
Bamboozled
Minstrelsy lives: At Reuters’ Oddly Enough, blackface in Belgium.
●
●
Behind the National Book Awards
Our own Edan Lepucki interviewed National Book Award finalists George Saunders and Rachel Kushner for the National Book Foundation. Saunders discussed money issues in his writing. “Now I feel like paucity vs. grace is one of the great American issues—we all live with it every day.” Kushner explained her writing process. “The sentences are beads on a string; I see each one as essential.”
Plan B
“It’s rough out there for artists and writers right now, I know. There are days when you just want to throw in the towel, say fuck it, fake your own death, give insurance fraud a go, and live out of a Winnebago somewhere in remote Ontario. That’s a good plan—that’s a really good plan—but remember, you’ve got options.” The Paris Review considers the life of artist Reuben Kadish, who bought a disused dairy farm, made it a viable business in a decade’s time, and changed his medium from painting to sculpture in the process.
For those of us who refuse to trade in the typewriter, however, there’s always our popular piece on how to write a novel.