If there’s one thing that surely hasn’t changed much over the centuries, it’s the response of parents to the first poetic stirrings in their child. “Perhaps you could be a doctor, and write poetry on the side?” they might gently suggest. “Like Keats?” “Um, yes, but perhaps you could actually practice medicine. […]
Another editorial/blog about the need for independent bookstores from Somerset Books. Nothing new, but maybe you hadn't heard: "There are many reasons why we still (and always will) need independent bookstores, but it really boils down to two basic reasons: economic and social." […]
This much-linked video review of “Freedom” shows Ron Charles in fine form, being about as level-headed as one can be about Franzen, a talented author with boundless ego. Charles’ text review, which begins with a look at Franzen’s use of poo in fiction, is also very good. And for those who haven’t yet seen Charles’ […]
Or that seems to be Borders’ solution to its constant financial problems, at least for the time being until the next quarter with lower than expected sales. Really, the problem with Borders is that it lost its identity about eight or so years ago when it decided to become a shadow of Barnes & Noble.  [...] […]
In recent years, fans of Norman Rockwell, with the assistance of some art historians, have attempted to lift him into the canon of high art. As a fan of midcentury American illustration, I don’t really care how he is assessed on that scale: like the recurring fantasy that underlies so much of our politics of [...] […]
In some ways, Alina Bronsky's Broken Glass Park is exactly what one might expect from a debut novel whose narrator and heroine is a seventeen-year-old girl. The book is fast-paced, engaging, and not exactly challenging in terms of form or style. What makes the book worth reading, however, is the fact that the story is a unique one, and one which is told […]
The man on the cover of A Life on Paper is Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, not his double Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Châteaureynaud—who has written nine novels and scores of stories in French, won major literary prizes, and been translated into a dozen other languages—now comes to English-language readers for the first time thanks to translator […]
The stories collected in The King of Trees are all concerned with the zhiqing who have been sent down to a remote corner of Yunnan province. Ah Cheng himself spent much of the Cultural Revolution doing farm work in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, and this border area is clearly the inspiration and basis for the setting of these three tales. All of the stories were wr […]
A well-known figure on the French literary scene, Linda Lê has had very little exposure to readers in the United States. A new translation of her 1997 novel The Three Fates may begin to change that situation. The novel is the first of three that Lê wrote following the death of her Vietnamese father, and like many of her works, it portrays individua […]
Now this is what its all about–a rapper whose name is a literary reference. That’s nice.
I’m a pretty big fan of Little Brother and, since Edgar Allen Floe is a part of their crew (also known as the Justus League), I figured I’d give his album Floe Almighty: The Remixture a shot. Turns out it’s pretty nice. The track featured on this post isn’t my personal favorite off the album (I couldn’t find that one in the public domain), but this is a pretty good track.
DeLillo's major work before White Noise is probably his most underrated novel. Its all right here--the politics of paranoia, terrorism, the unnamable--set in an evocative, timeless Greece.
The most bizarre Abe novel I've yet read, which is indeed saying something. About a subclass of Japanese men who go around wearing boxes from the waist up (and then use them as domiciles in the evening), the book is also an experiment in perspective shifts, a highly unstable, metafictional first-person narrative, and an exploration of voyeurism, consumerism, and aberrant sexuality.
Charting the path to three gunshots--the one that killed filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, the one that disabled his Islamic extremist assassin, Mohammed Bouyeri, and the one that led to Vincent Van Gogh’s one hundred years earlier--Olsen tells three separate stories that resonate with one another on numerous levels: the logic of extremism, the role of the dissident in Dutch society, the limits of tolerance, the purpose of the artist, the feeling of the most important five minutes of your life. Read my interview with the author.
Creatively structured, well-executed epic novel of rural South Africa from 1950 - 2000. Takes on a lot and lives up to it magnificently. Highly recommended.
A book that's an interview about the book you're supposedly holding in your hands. Creative, potent, and full of life. Just what metafiction should be. Read my post on it.
The Quarterly Conversation Issue 21
A Note on Links
More Essays by Milan
Speaking of Distraction
The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
Another Review of The Novel: An Alternative History
The Orange Eats Creeps
The Unconsoled and the Annihilation of Plot
The Names by Don DeLillo (1982)
The Box Man by Kobo Abe (1973, English 1974)
Head in Flames by Lance Olsen (2009)
Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk (2006, English 2010)
The Weather Fifteen Years Ago by Wolf Haas (2006, English 2009)
[...] Friday Hip Hop: Edgar Allen Floe Conversational Reading – http://conversationalreading.com/friday-hip-hop-edgar-allen-floe – http://www.GetShawty.com [...]