Sunday reading, a day early

My New York Times Magazine columnlet this week is about Chris Offutt’s attempts to bake a “Bible Cake” recipe (first published in a Kentucky P.T.A. cookbook in 1967) without cursing.

Just about every time I mention a piece of writing in one of these tiny columns, it’s because I hope everyone who sees it will seek the thing out and read it. This one is no exception. I hope I captured a fraction of the flavor (sorry) of Offutt’s full essay, which appears in The Oxford American.

Last week’s columnlet was on Joan Schenkar’s speculations about Patricia Highsmith and marriage equality for The Fertile Fact. Another recent one was devoted to Brett Fletcher Lauer’s faux Missed Connections, which he wrote about for A Public Space.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s conversation with Jonathan Franzen about his forthcoming novel, The Sound of Things Falling, is only available in the galley, but it’s a fascinating prelude to an excellent book.


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