At the Guardian, Kazuo Ishiguro discusses his newest book, Klara and the Sun, and how this latest offering echoes themes and ideas he has often explored in his previous work. “Literary novelists are slightly defensive about being repetitive,” Ishiguro says. “I think it is perfectly justified: you keep doing it until it comes closer and closer to what you want to say each time.”
Kazuo Ishiguro on the Joys of Repetition
“The only option is to participate.”
The Missouri Review interview with Jessa Crispin, founder of Bookslut. If you’ve yet to stumble upon the decade old literary blog, you might want to start with this recent post from Kevin Frazier on Edith Wharton and Julian Barnes. Or this treat from the archives about Monica McFawn Robinson trying to construct an undergraduate course syllabus on love.
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Angel Face: Barbie Latza Nadeau on Student Killer Amanda Knox
At The Daily Beast, Newsweek reporter Barbie Latza Nadeau on Amanda Knox, the American university exchange student convicted of the murder of her roommate, an English exchange student, Meredith Kircher, by Italian criminal courts in December 2009. The murder took place in Perugia, Italy, where both girls were studying abroad. The case, with its suggestions of ritual sexual violence, and Knox’s bizarre behavior throughout the investigation and trial transfixed the Italian media. The excerpt at the Beast is from Nadeau’s new book Angel Face: The True Story of Student Killer Amanda Knox.
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The New Genre
Is Twitter an official literary genre? David Mitchell, Philip Pullman, Margaret Atwood, and others take on the 140-character interface as a storytelling platform. Pair with our piece on the best of literary Twitter.
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Do You Have That in Paperback
Cairo bookstore Bab Aldonia has installed a soundproof room for its customers in which, MobyLives reports, “anyone can go and scream in privacy for ten minutes at a time.” An unsigned piece on the online magazine Cairoscene notes that working out one’s frustrations within the safety of its walls “may prove just as effective as regime change.” The stakes are considerably lower, but if you’re a fan of indie booksellers, you’ll also enjoy our piece about bookstores we have known, loved, and worked for.
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“Smudged pink harlequin glasses”
Last week, I pointed readers to a Page-Turner essay by Amy Bloom, whose new novel, Lucky Us, came out on Tuesday. Now, as part of the By the Book series in the Times, she talks about her summertime reads, her first picture book and who she’d invite to a literary dinner party. (FYI, we’ve written about the series before.)
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