My favorite newish book of the year is (surprise) the Autobiography of Mark Twain, and I wrote about it for Salon, where there are also best of 2010 contributions from my friends Laura Miller and Laura Lippman, and from other writers, including David Grann, Ted Conover, George Pelecanos, Dave Eggers, Elizabeth Kolbert, Anthony Shadid, James Fallows, and Rebecca Traister. And . . .
“The material was so hot that it deformed the writing whenever I came at it directly.” The Paris Review excerpts parts of the forthcoming interview with Jonathan Franzen.
Muriel Spark turned to novels late and easily could have ended up not writing them at all. Good thing her friend Tony Strachan “positively nagged me about the waste of my talent.” (Thanks, Amitava.)
Paris Review editor Lorin Stein “will happily quote your favorite poem” or “write whatever you tell me to, as long as it’s non-actionable and clean” on your holiday subscription card.