~Groucho Marx
“5 - Five - Catholic novels that I love”
Douglas Prasher works at a Toyota dealership in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2008, he should have won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. What happened? what?
Literature Has Often Inspired Movies. But Poetry?
“It’s not often that a poet gets to see their words on a movie theater screen. So much of being a poet is very isolating, sitting in your pajamas over a notebook for 14 hours on end, so it’s cool to get to do something with poetry that’s very collaborative.”
The Serious Writing Establishment Embraces TV
In a world in which some of our more successful or esteemed novelists — Margaret Atwood, Gillian Flynn, George R.R. Martin, Salman Rushdie, Kevin Kwan, Neil Gaiman, Tom Perrotta, Noah Hawley, A.M. Homes, Jonathan Ames, Megan Abbott and David Benioff, to name only a few — have written or are writing for the small screen, literary academia has less reason than ever to be sheepish about preparing its charges for the solaces of a healthy paycheck.
'Freedom from Opinion'
Those with fervently held opinions tend to be convinced of their importance, though some of us understand that opinions are as disposable as Kleenex. Please, don’t tell me your opinion. Tell me what you know, assuming you know anything and that it holds some interest. On Thanksgiving Day, a reader begging for a fight dismissed that day’s post as “a waste of time about a bad poet.” It’s a mistake to engage with people who have no interest in reasoning and exchanging thoughts. Every parent of young children knows this. It’s never about the content of such comments but the dense atmosphere of self-centeredness pushing on them from the inside. The pathologically opinionated are overflowing with what Charles Gullans in “Research” (Letter from Los Angeles, 1990) calls “terrors of trivia.” Angry tedium, like pressurized gas, must be released. Theodore Dalrymple is writing about the ridiculous, soft-headed resurgence of witchcraft (he calls it the “selfie of the soul”) but he speaks for many of us:
“Thanks to so-called social media, we have lost one of the most cherished freedoms of all, namely that of freedom from opinion.”
The year’s notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review.
How to share your writing with others
by Stephanie Valente
Writing is wonderful, sharing it with other folks is the hard part. If you’re chugging along through NaNoWriMo this month or just working on a novel draft, getting some insights and key tips from your writing group, peers, friends, or colleague is essential. But, that means you actually have to share your oh-so-precious writings with another human being. And if it’s your first time (or third) at the novel rodeo, it can be tough.
The art of the bromance How to share your writing with others, part two
Stephanie Valente
- Art of subtitles
California wildfires hit the book business
Ryan Harrington
The fires burning in California have taken a devastating amount of human lives, damaged property, and once again brought out our ugly enthusiasm for the modern slavery that is the American… Read more »- I in the middle of Edgar Allan Poe -- and I have to say, it's getting a bit heavy. So I've taken recourse to an old favorite: Milan Kundera.At this point, I've read most of Kundera's work, but his most recent novel -- The Festival of Insignificance -- is not one I'd had a chance to enjoy. That is, until this week.As always with Kundera, I was not disappointed. Festival is a fast, easy read, and while it's not as complex, perhaps, as the novels before it, there's a glimmer of magic here, certainly.Two themes emerge: absurdity and individuality. These are topics, of course, that Kundera has explored in the past, but here, they're crystalized: as if the characters, finally, are meant as nothing more than vehicles to expound philosophical concepts.And when it comes with Kundera, that doesn't bother me. Reading Kundera has never, really, been about his characters: it's been, instead, about understanding how their actions represent larger ideas. The same holds true in Festival: characters laugh not because it makes them whole or three dimensional, but because the thing that makes them laugh is worthy of evaluation.The Festival of Insignificance is meant to be read in an afternoon: it's a reminder of the absurdity of it all; of the role of humor amidst sorrow; and of the process by which ideas transform into action. This isn't Kundera at his heights necessarily, but it's a reminder of the style and concepts that made him famous.
- Pankaj Mishra, Q&A
- The pun, long considered the lowest form of wit, is widely — and unfairly! — reviled. Puns are at once pedestrian and profound
- In Brazil, termites have built a sprawling megacity the size of Britain SCMP
John Bluthal, Actor Of ‘Pink Panther’ And ‘Vicar Of Dibley’ Fame, Has Died At 89
The actor was born in Poland but immigrated to Australia when he was 9 years old, and became a star in Australia, the UK, and the US. … Read MoreAn Ancient Trojan City Is Unearthed In Greece
Before the discovery, the city of Tenea existed solely as a legend. "Tenea was built by the Trojans after the end of the Trojan War, according to the myth." … Read More
