TODAY: In 1964, Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond series of spy novels, dies.
- “These were nations born as a result of a heroic opposition to imperial rule, but their birth was also marked by hatred and bloodshed.” Kamila Shamsie, Mohsin Hamid, Salman Rushdie and others reflect on the 70th anniversary of partition. | The Guardian
- “One has to hand it to a rock veteran who still wants to get on stage and make music even when his youthful beauty and once-tender, husky baritone have dimmed.” Lorrie Moore’s ode to Stephen Stills. | The New York Review of Books
- How a YA novel went from being deemed “an uncompromising condemnation of prejudice and injustice” to “racist, ableist, homophobic, and. . . written with no marginalized people in mind”—all before its publication date. | Vulture
- “It looked as though we had all gathered on hilltops to pray for the world on its last day.” In honor of this month’s upcoming solar eclipse, The Atlantic has republished Annie Dillard’s classic 1982 essay “Total Eclipse.” | The Atlantic
- “There should be no shame in anger. There should be no shame in love. There should be no shame in wanting things.” Ruth Franklin profiles Claire Messud. | The New York Times Magazine
- One of the ways we survive darkness is to find reasons to laugh: an interview with Stay with Me author Ayobami Adebayo. | The Paris Review
- The other side of terror is beauty: Ishion Hutchinson remembers Derek Walcott. | The New York Times
- “Our whole history has been about imposing order on things that cannot be controlled.” Hermione Hoby goes for a drive with South African novelist Ivan Vladislavic. | The New Yorker
- “Taste isn’t a huge concern to me if I’m drinking in the service of a higher goal.” A week in food with Made for Love author Alissa Nutting. | Grub Street
- “Realism is so unrealistic, actually, so artificial: and writers, if they’re any good, are intensely and pleasurably aware of deploying that artifice.” Sarah Hall and Tessa Hadley in conversation. | Granta
- “I didn’t really try very hard to separate the food-writing me and the fiction-writing me. It’s all just kind of a jumbled mess in my brain.” An interview with Rachel Khong. | Bookforum
- “This is one reason I love it: it always seems to escape me when I try to classify it.” On “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” and fiction that exists between genres. | Tor
- “When the day comes that the internet commentariat cleaves into opposing sides for war of attrition over this book and film, it will in part be a war premised on misunderstanding.” On the source material behind Steven Spielberg’s forthcoming yet already divisive Ready Player One. | Deadspin
- She saw hope, but only a long way off: On Octavia Butler’s never-completed novel The Parable of the Trickster. | Electric Literature
- Why must this uniquely successful genre keep enduring slights and insults? On the thriving romance genre and the “economic power of reading women.” | The Washington Post
Lan Samantha Chang on why writers must protect their inner lives · Naked ladies and weird, invisible men: What Carina Chocano learned from her grandfather’s Playboy collection · Carol Anderson on the history of respectability politics and their failure to keep black Americans safe · To live like the women of Viking literature: Linnea Hartsuyker on growing up in a house where “princess” was an insult · Aphra Behn, the first English woman to make a living as a writer, was also a spy · On the rise of Scandinavian crime fiction · Speaking with Kamila Shamsie, who is bringing Pakistani history to a global audience · John Berger contemplates life and death at the graveside of Mahmoud Darwish · How much of Einstein’s theory of relativity is in the writing of Virginia Woolf? · Amber Sparks on the useful dangers of fairy tales
This week on Book Marks:
Death of an innocent: A 1996 review of Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild · The Tampa Bay Times calls Sarah Schmidt’s reimagining of the Lizzie Borden story “a dread-inducing, claustrophobic, nightmarish immersion” · A 1959 New York Times review of Shirley Jackson’s iconic psychological ghost story, The Haunting of Hill House · Danzy Senna’s New People, “a martini-dry, espresso-dark comedy of contemporary manners” · The Poet of Paranoia: Martin Amis on Don DeLillo’s Underworld · The examination of the mafia mind in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather · Now I am become death: A look back at John Hersey’s harrowing account of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing · Bob Marley, Marcel Marceau, savage beasts, and more all feature among our best-reviewed books of the week
