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Banville event highlights

Mark Sarvas attended John Banville’s Christine Falls reading and discussion at the LAPL last night and returned with highlights — and a video clip. (See also.)

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The Becky

An award for promulgation of linguistic nonsense is named for Becanus, author of a 1569 book asserting that Flemish was the language spoken in the Garden of Eden. (Via.)

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Kate Atkinson v. Richard Ford

My Tournament of Books judgment — between Kate Atkinson’s One Good Turn and Richard Ford’s The Lay of the Land — is up at The Morning News today. Here’s the first paragraph: Vladimir Nabokov expressed contempt for the idea that fictional characters can influence their own destinies. “That trite little whimsy … is as old as the quills,” he told . . .

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