This is not quite the silly season—happily, I’m not referring to the start of Major League Baseball—but rather to the fact that most of the beauty pageants known as awards have already had their day and their press releases. But, along comes Granta97 (Spring 2007), with an
Sigrid Nunez wanted to be a dancer, and lucky for her readers, that didn't work out as planned. Nevertheless capable of some deft footwork, she explains to our man in Boston how the two pastimes are similar.
It has not escaped my attention that some of my literary comrades have mellowed their negative attitudes toward the New York Times Book Review. I wonder if I will ever be able to say the same. I go through phases of paying attention to book reviews, and this is a
Two of my favorite events take place, in quick succession, in March: the twice (or thrice)-yearly Bryn Mawr Bookstore half-price sale, which, incredibly, discounts some titles more and more as the week-long sale progresses; and the PEN/Hemingway Awards, which in recent years has had Russell Banks,
I’m no fan of the beauty contests that are known as awards, even the literary variety; nonetheless, I accept that they normally improve the lot of the awardee/awarded. Thus I am pleased to note that Daniel Mendelsohn has received a National Book Critics Circle nod for his wonderfully
The Mick Jagger of British literature is out with another book slated to be a hit. A conversation about everything important under the sun: getting older, the differences between life in Uruguay and London, and the best ways to write fictional footnotes.
In order to reify my credentials as a bona fide journalist I feel that I must occasionally create some list or other and also exhibit some sense of timeliness and topicality—these being the only paths open to me as I have foresworn having lunch with anyone but close friends.
Cultural moments that seem to have gained weight and currency in recent years strike me as just so much noise and special effects—which does not augur well for the literary narrative, if you look at the hoopla and attendant regurgitation of the advertisements on the modern version of Bread
Last week was busy and productive wherein, prefatory to scheduled conversations with the authors, I read Naked Sleeper by Sigrid Nuñez, House of Meetings by Martin Amis, and Zoli by Colum McCann—all excellent—and then, of course, carried out the conversations which should see the light of day, um,
This past holiday I bought my son—whose favorite song is Warren Zevon’s “Gorilla, You’re a Desperado”—a 1GB iPod Shuffle. Its approximately 240 songs should be sufficient for his nine-year-old musical literacy. This started me contemplating the notion of collection and storage—for the record,
