Self-doubt with MFK Fisher
Part of the pleasure of reading MFK Fisher’s 1942 hard-times survival guide, How to Cook a Wolf, comes from the withering commentary/self-rebuttal she added for the 1952 edition.
Part of the pleasure of reading MFK Fisher’s 1942 hard-times survival guide, How to Cook a Wolf, comes from the withering commentary/self-rebuttal she added for the 1952 edition.
Can a writer get through Somerset Maugham’s (hilariously scathing) Cakes and Ale without reading whole passages to others? Exhibit B; Exhibit A. Try it; let me know how you fare.
“Show me a novel that’s not comic and I’ll show you a novel that’s not doing its job.” Howard Jacobson on the devaluation of humor in literature. See also Jacobson for Beginners.
Hawthorne and Melville were some of “the first American imaginative writers to challenge the myth of American Exceptionalism.” (Via.)
Beijing police order Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo’s wife Liu Xia from her home in an apparent effort to prevent her from talking to the press. (Via.) See also some of Liu Xiaobo’s writings, and a 2006 speech.