U.S. poet missing in Japan
Poet and volcano explorer Craig Arnold went missing on a small Japanese island three days ago. Call to continue the search. (Thanks, David.)
Stephanie Keith documents the life of a Voodoo priestess
Photographer Stephanie Keith has a sharp eye, a frank and unpretentious manner, and a vigorous, roving curiosity. For the past several years, she’s been documenting Voodoo ceremonies in Brooklyn’s Haitian community. Her early work in this area (captured in a 2007 NPR slideshow from which the image above was [...]
Little screens, big books
Sometimes I write little draft pieces of my novel on my phone while commuting, but Peter Brett composed a whole book this way.
English writers v. rest of the world’s?
“There is so much wrong with Philip Jones’s ‘English writers outperform rivals’ post,” but let’s start with the title.
Marie Mockett interviews Colson Whitehead
At one of our first dinners — or was it during a marathon phone conversation? — I discovered that Marie Mockett shares my admiration for Colson Whitehead’s work.
I figured readers of this site would enjoy someone else’s perspective on his writing for a change, so I invited her to interview the author (who’s become [...]
On Frederick Barthelme’s Waveland
My brief appreciation of Frederick Barthelme’s Waveland is up at NPR. The novel, his twelfth work of fiction,
obliquely parallels the fate of the [Mississippi Gulf Coast] town of its title. “Even before Katrina,” he writes, “when Waveland was all there, it wasn’t a high-toned beach town; it was more like 10 miles of down-on-its-luck [...]
Rock my Religion: where Shakers & Patti Smith meet?
Derek Graham’s Rock My Religion, a remarkable early ’80s documentary of sorts, contends that evangelical revivals and American rock music — which we usually think of as having come together starting only in the last couple of decades — were linked from the start.
Graham formulates a history that begins with the Shakers, an early religious [...]
Baby Yaga Laid an Egg
Dubravka Ugresic reimagines the witch of Russian lore who kidnaps small children and lives in a house on chicken feet. (Via.)
New fiction
File under authors I know, writing well: excerpts from Marc Fitten’s Valeria’s Last Stand & Whitehead’s Sag Harbor.
Only four left
“There comes a point when you can count the number of books you’re going to write before you die” — Ishiguro at The Guardian. (Via.)
Vladimir Nabokov, literary critic
“Mummy selected at random”: The New Republic posts reviews Nabokov contributed to the magazine in the early 1940s.
Nineteenth century book jacket
The earliest known dust jacket (circa 1830) wrapped the book like a parcel and is a pretty homely specimen.
New Chris Adrian
Bookmarked for myself and @hitsong: new Chris Adrian story, A Tiny Feast, at The New Yorker.
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 [...]
Mantel v. the Virgin
“Not a woman I liked, on the whole.” Hilary Mantel reviews Miri Rubin’s Mother of God, and contemplates the Virgin Mary.
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