Walker Percy’s unknown experiment with narrative doubling
The Hopkins Review plans to publish a previously unknown and somewhat unusual early Walker Percy story.
On Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor
At NPR today I discuss Brad Gooch’s new biography of Flannery O’Connor, a good book that, increasingly, I sort of wish I hadn’t read. An excerpt:
Reading about a favorite writer is risky. No matter how diligently the reader tries to compartmentalize, disappointing revelations threaten to infect the very books that inspired curiosity about the author [...]
DFW conference this November
CUNY’s Graduate Center is accepting abstracts for a one-day conference devoted to David Foster Wallace’s work.
2009 ToB champ emerges
The 2009 Tournament of Books ends with a match between Toni Morrison’s A Mercy and Tom Piazza’s City of Refuge.
Morgan’s All the Living: Not hope, but resignation
Today at The Second Pass I consider C.E. Morgan’s first novel, All the Living, in the context of other fiction that takes up the question of faith — and as an example of what Marilynne Robinson has provisionally called “cosmic realism.”
An excerpt:
Marilynne Robinson is the rare contemporary writer who has dared to devote [...]
The Smart Set: Lauren Cerand’s weekly events
The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30 pm, and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to Ms. Cerand at lauren [at] maudnewton.com [...]
Quick notes on the week, hopes for next
I’m sorry it’s been so quiet here. Between allergy season and deadlines, I haven’t done much of anything this week but work and sleep. Even my Twitter feed lies fallow. Fingers crossed, things will have calmed down by Monday.
I did take a couple hours out last night for the [...]
Today in bookstore recession survival strategies
Hector Tobar visits Los Angeles’ new tamale shop and bookstore. Mama’s Hot Tamales, which faces MacArthur Park in what some call the cradle of Los Angeles’ Central American population, is sharing its space with Librería Hispanoamérica in the hopes that the two businesses can help one another survive the economic [...]
George Orwell, laissez faire parent
Orwell’s adopted son, who may or may not have poured the writer’s “ration of gin” every evening, recalls the man who died when he was six.
Bob Dylan, Larry Brown, and the threading together of disparate sources
Bob Dylan once claimed to have read every word Larry Brown wrote. His new album cover seems to be an homage to the late Southern writer.
The Smart Set: Lauren Cerand’s weekly events
The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30 pm, and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to Ms. Cerand at lauren [at] maudnewton.com [...]
The Battlestar Galactica debates
The intensity of the argument linked above, if not the content, is awfully familiar. I’ve been so insufferable this weekend on the disappointments of the Battlestar Galactica series finale that I owe everyone I know who also watched the show an apology. I wasn’t allowed much access to [...]
Le Roland-Barthes sans peine (Roland Barthes Made Easy)?
In a move the critic might not have welcomed, the journals of Roland Barthes have been published, and read aloud onstage.
Draft that became Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain
The handwritten divisions on James Baldwin’s synposis of Crying Holy, the draft novel that evolved into Go Tell It on the Mountain, offer a look at his early thoughts about structure.
The page pictured above is the first of four; you can find the rest — and much, much more [...]
Debut novel from Greg Ames out soon
Greg Ames, author of one of my favorite short stories, will soon see his first novel, Buffalo Lockjaw, launched into the world. Can’t wait.
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