Any person or persons who attempt to recognize their own sordid idiosyncracies in any character in this book are warned that anything they say will be used in evidence against them
Myra Melford’s Snowy Egret, The Other Side of Air.
Makaya McCraven, Universal Beings.
Two out of three picks being women is unusual for jazz, but for the better ...
Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton of U2 perform at the SCG on November 22, 2019 in Sydney, Australia. Picture: Getty Images Source: Getty Images
Antipodean Taurus Richard Clapton (born 18 May) is an Australian singer-songwriter-guitarist and producer. His solo top 20 hits on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart are "Girls on the Avenue" (1975) and "I Am an Island" (1982)
A U2 fan account claimed the line for general admission outside the SCG in Moore Park was the longest of the 2019 tour since it kicked off in Auckland this month.
The One Bookstore In Venice That Figured Out How To Handle Floods Couldn’t Handle This One
“Keeping a large collection of books in a canal city prone to flooding was always a dangerous idea, which is why Venice’s Libreria Acqua Alta (High Water Bookshop) had decided to store its books inside bathtubs, waterproof bins, and even a full-sized gondola. But … this measure wasn’t enough to save the countless books, magazines and other items crammed inside the famous bookstore when the worst floods in half a century hit Venice this week.” – The Local (Italy)
Paul Davis On Crime: 'Extraordinary' Letters Between Ian Fleming And Wife To Be Sold.
“They are quite something, it has been a real treat,” he said. “They are an extraordinary read because Ian Fleming is pretty much incapable of writing a dull sentence.”
Sydney is admired by the world but let down by high costs, bad nightlife and lack of narrative
Sydney is selling itself short as a destination for global business, entrepreneurs and fun-hungry tourists, and lacks a narrative about itself
For their coiled, angry, masculinity, D.H. Lawrence's essays are indefensible. For their sweep and immaculate style, they are unforgettable DHL
Slate’s books team selects the definitive works of reporting, memoir, and argument of the past quarter-century. “…Slate’s list of the definitive nonfiction books written in English in the past quarter-century includes beautifully written memoirs but also books of reportage, collections of essays, travelogues, works of cultural criticism, passionate arguments, even a compendium of household tips. What they all share is a commitment to “mostly truth” and the belief that digging deep to find a real story—whether it’s located in your memory, on dusty archive shelves, in Russian literature, in a slum in Mumbai—is a task worth undertaking…”
For their coiled, angry, masculinity, D.H. Lawrence's essays are indefensible. For their sweep and immaculate style, they are unforgettable DHL
Slate’s books team selects the definitive works of reporting, memoir, and argument of the past quarter-century. “…Slate’s list of the definitive nonfiction books written in English in the past quarter-century includes beautifully written memoirs but also books of reportage, collections of essays, travelogues, works of cultural criticism, passionate arguments, even a compendium of household tips. What they all share is a commitment to “mostly truth” and the belief that digging deep to find a real story—whether it’s located in your memory, on dusty archive shelves, in Russian literature, in a slum in Mumbai—is a task worth undertaking…”
Who Needs Literature? LA Review of Books. Isaac Bashevis Singer from 1963.
Inventing a God Lapham’s Quarterly
Philosophy and “The Joker” movie — commentary from five philosophers
“Privacy is both a personal and a collective affair, because data is rarely used on an individual basis” — Carissa Véliz (Oxford) on the collective dimensions of personal privacy
Grappling With The Purpose Of The Public Library
If public libraries are not for the rich, they probably are not otherwise for the poor. To understand the public library as a benevolent form of welfare would be to entirely miss the radical potential of the institution as a political project. It isn’t utopian, nor is about culturing the masses, nor offering the marginalized a space where they mustn’t “pay for coffee.” – The Baffler
Explore the list of 100 Novels That Shaped Our World – “Stories have the power to change us. We asked a panel of leading writers, curators and critics to choose 100 genre-busting novels that have had an impact on their lives, and this is the result. These English language novels, written over the last 300 years, range from children’s classics to popular page turners. Organised into themes, they reflect the ways books help shape and influence our thinking. There was months of deliberation and reflection by the panel but what would you have chosen? Share the novel that’s shaped you on our Facebook page or using #mybooklife on Twitter.”
Explore the list of 100 Novels That Shaped Our World – “Stories have the power to change us. We asked a panel of leading writers, curators and critics to choose 100 genre-busting novels that have had an impact on their lives, and this is the result. These English language novels, written over the last 300 years, range from children’s classics to popular page turners. Organised into themes, they reflect the ways books help shape and influence our thinking. There was months of deliberation and reflection by the panel but what would you have chosen? Share the novel that’s shaped you on our Facebook page or using #mybooklife on Twitter.”
When a story’s audience knows something that the characters do not, this situation is called “dramatic irony.” The classic example is Oedipus Rex — we know some meaningful information about the king’s parents that he does not find out until the end of the play. Sometimes, we are forced to view our own pasts through this lens. There are times we behaved in ways that would have made no sense at all if we knew then what we know now.
Ignore everyone making political predictions
Ignore everyone making political predictions
The Serious Critic: How James Wood’s Judgment Has Changed
Wood’s earlier essays are more sure of themselves, more eager to please, packed with the kind of aphoristic insights that might have undergraduates reaching for their highlighter pens… In later essays, mostly those written for the New Yorker, there is a more grounded and relaxed voice; a bit less desire to display fizzing erudition, a bit more concern for the messiness of emotional truth. – The Guardian
The whole of human life is contained in books
"The whole of human life is contained in books" and that's especially true of The Master Key, by Masako Togawa. It's a cross-section of the lives inhabiting a ladies-only apartment building, more like a series of interconnected stories than a novel.
At the age of twenty-five, instead of marrying a young man, she settled down as receptionist manageress of an apartment block full of young women. Day in and day out she sat at the front desk, dreaming her dreams, and determined to better herself. She would watch the young ladies of her own age going out to their work, and she would secretly read and read — several books a day, sometimes, keeping them hidden on her knee under the desk. Well, the whole of human life is contained in books. Love, desire, success and failure, death and grief... they're all there, in the world of books.
So she went on sitting at that desk, and her straight little back gradually began to bend a bit, but still she went on reading books and fed and nourished her mind in that way. And one day, before she had time to notice what had happened, she woke up to find that she was forty years old. Suddenly the shadow of tragedy passed over her at that moment — she didn't know why it was so, but she felt it, and that's what matters.
Lauren Gunderson On Giving (And Getting) Voice In The Theatre
Becoming the first woman to top the list of most-produced playwrights (in the 2017-18 U.S. season) was a feat, and this year’s return to the No. 1 spotmight be even more impressive. But the 37-year-old writer’s quiet rise to the top of her profession isn’t just a personal victory, because she has built her success on telling women’s stories — and providing more (and more challenging) roles to female actors. – Arizona Republic
The Paris Review’s New Poetry Editor Has Hope For The Future Of Literature
Vijay Seshadri, who became poetry editor for the legendary literary magazine in August, says that going through the Review‘s slush pile is invigorating. “You kind of feel that something new is happening, among all of this chaos and turmoil.” – NPR
Is most modern liberalism just the Christian heresy of Pelagianism by another name? A revisionist critique of John Rawls says yes... Rawls
What makes a "bad movie" good? "These sorts of movies fascinate me in the way a too-honest idiot does, after he’s had three or four drinks"... bad movies
Elizabeth Bishop’s dogged pertinacity: She would spend years, even decades, on a poem. Every word, every nuance, had to be perfect... perfecto
The National Review, American Greatness, and The Claremont Review of Books share a vision of American nationalism. That vision is a lien Greatness
| Lucian Freud thought Celia Paul was just another pretty muse. But she was a painter herself. Zadie Smith unpacks “museography” Zadie
| Science is trustworthy because it works, right? Well, most scientific theories throughout history have turned out to be false. Is our time different?... Science
Rivalries, alleged plagiarism, rapturous fandom — the giants ofRussia’s golden age of literature had complicated relationships with one another... Russia
Lydia Davis is a modern Vermeer, patiently observing everyday life, but from odd and askew angles... Strange
| In terms of its influence, The Economist has long been a publication like no other. It can plausibly be said to have made the modern world... Kiss
| For García Márquez, the relationship between journalism and fiction was symbiotic: Journalism was an apprenticeship for fiction... Gracie
Jefferson's lofty vision for the University of Virginia was not shared by its early students. Riots in 1825 brought him to tears... Vergin
What makes a "bad movie" good? "These sorts of movies fascinate me in the way a too-honest idiot does, after he’s had three or four drinks"... bad movies
Guilty pleasures make us feel guilty because we know the shoddiness of what we’re getting but desire it all the same. What's going on? Ask Adorno... Adorno
On May 30, 1975, Nabokov appeared on Apostrophes, a French talk show. He drank whiskey from a teapot and glanced at notecards. The interview was marvelous Nabakov
| “She walks like a bird, but that bird is a duck.” Short, plump, and ungainly, Loie Fuller was the unlikely star of the French Folies... Folies
A sexy, transgressive ’70s cult classic urged rolling the dice on life’s big decisions. A search for its elusive, alluring author Author
In what way is Frank Sinatra the Jacques Derrida of pop music? Because no one was better at multilayered interpretations of lyrics. Ted Gioia explains Gioia
The LRB at 40. Seriousness, spats, and personal ads: “Bald, short, fat and ugly male, 53, seeks shortsighted woman with tremendous sexual appetite”...Forty
| The most divisive question in fiction: Who gave you the right to tell that story? The answer, as 10 authors explain, is complicated Fiktion
Writers must not only write but also perform. J.D. Salinger simply refused. What was he keeping from us? That he was just as human as we are... Salinger
No | A poetic smackdown: 100 years ago, T.S. Eliot celebrated “tradition” and bashed the avant-garde. His venue? The leading avant-garde forum of the day Eliot