TODAY: In 1938, Francine Pascal, author of the Sweet Valley High young adult novels, is born.
- “It is amazing that a technical problem, which never seems to happen, mysteriously pops up when we start talking about the sensitive political things being born from treason.” A report from Cory Doctorow’s discussion with Edward Snowden at the New York Public Library. | The New York Times
- Golf buddies Bill Clinton and James Patterson are co-writing a political thriller entitled The President is Missing, forthcoming in June 2018. | Publishers Weekly
- In fanfictive Clinton literary news, Curtis Sittenfeld’s next novel will imagine a world in which Hillary never married Bill. | EW
- “There is an obvious risk all people will see are just bad Munch paintings—there is probably a reason why many of them have never been exhibited. But even that is better than the usual rounds of hallelujahs and awe.” Speaking with Karl Ove Knausgaard about curating an exhibition of Edvard Munch’s paintings. | VICE
- On the prescient politics of Herman Melville, who “saw the United States, diseased with false innocence and a ravenous desire for getting rich, heading toward Apocalypse.” | The Nation
- “The words’ histories, their original contexts, their authorial intents—none of that much matters in the breezy world of Women Who Work.” On Ivanka Trump’s appropriative use of quotes in her self-help book. | The Atlantic
- Vinson Cunningham on the oft-debated legitimacy of Black English, a grammatically complex dialect and “a moral language, too.” | The New Yorker
- The long-term aim of the Soviet state machine was to take his life: Eimear McBride on Osip Mandelstam and writing poetry under Stalin. | New Statesman
- “If I’m just an asshole in cowboy boots, there’s nothing for me to do.” Edan Lepucki speaks to Kevin Bacon about playing the titular character in Jill Soloway’s I Love Dick adaptation. | Esquire
- All true radicalism has to begin in the body: Samuel R. Delany and Junot Díaz in conversation. | The Boston Review
- “I always thought of the horror of history being what you know, but by the end of the book I started to have the sense that the even worse horror of history is the horror that you don’t know.” An interview with David Grann. | Guernica
- I don’t find the fantasy itself creepy: An interview with Mary Gaitskill. | NPR
- “We’re missing out on a fierce mind when we reduce her to a spinster perseverating alone in her room writing poems to the ether.” Interrogating Emily Dickinson’s reclusive reputation. | Hyperallergic
- On Yaa Gyasi, visual artist Toyin Ojih Odutola, and the “representational chasm” of African immigrants in America. | The New York Times Magazine
- “So much of team sports is dim, dull, and unmemorable. But a rivalry sparkles like a blade on a whetstone.” Kent Russell on watching professional hockey. | n+1
- “So you see I’m capable of telling a lie. But only if I really think it’s harmless.” Barbara Browning on the slippery boundaries of reality and fiction. | Catapult
Reality and unreality in Murakami’s fiction and the post-9/11 world · I thought to make literature a space of resistance: An interview with Édouard Louis. · How Dr. Patricia Matthew is revealing the unwritten obstacles faced by academics of color · Why would aliens even bother with Earth? · If we plotted a Dad v. Daddy chart, what quadrant does Priestdaddy fall in? Patricia Lockwood and Mallory Ortberg in conversation · I think we need to be frightened: Highlights from Claudia Rankine’s talk at Eat, Drink, and Be Literary · What makes a house a home? Meghan Daum on the complexities of where we take shelter · Suzanne Césaire, Eileen Agar, and other women Surrealists who can offer guidance through our new political reality · Writing about Charlie Brown feels like writing about myself: Chuck Klosterman on the enduring appeal of The Peanuts · Andrew Johnson’s impeachment: A model and a warning for Trump
The Best of Book Marks:
From 1963, George Plimpton on Thomas Pynchon’s debut novel V. · Isolation and despair in Haruki Murakami’s surreal dreamscape · Illuminating the dark sky of sex: On James Salter’s A Sport and a Pastime · Garth Greenwell on the harrowing auto-fiction of French literary sensation Édouard Louis · Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and George Smiley as the “anti-James Bond” · Stephen King’s The Dark Tower as a uniquely American epic · New work by Colm Tóibín, Haruki Murakami, and more: The 5 best-reviewed books of this week
