Enough To Make Any Baby Cry

We crawled off the changing table just before our baptism.  Blood was pouring out of our mouth, staining the priest’s white sacraments.  By all accounts, we were a very quiet baby, much like our adulthood, and we shed no tears throughout the ceremony.  Call us the spawn of Satan, our sign is a small scar on our tongue.  Out of the mouths of babes…. Out of Monday comes Deadspin’s recommended reading for Derby Day.  Out of Chris Buckley comes a review of Tom Rachman’s The Imperfectionists.  A new biography of Knut Hamsun, Nobel Prize laureate, Norwegian American.  The Millions reviews a cultural history of boxing.  And finally, early hipsters and pop artists in the Wall Street Journal. Out of the mouths of the internet. — Andrew Geer

Big Things

Big things are in the works. Big big things. All we can say is that next week at this time much will be different, and better. It’s exciting, mind-blowing, and nerve-wracking, all at the same time. If we compared these big things to the writing life, it would be akin to having a novel published, a novel that’s taken many years to write, one that’s required a strong sense of personal commitment and just a little bit of good luck.  Soon, the results of all this work and luck will be revealed to the world. Yikes, big things indeed! At any rate, to be a little less cryptic, here’s today’s roundup of literature news, which, in its own right, is just as big and important as anything else that’s happening. Stephen Burt gives us the lowdown on four new titles from the world or poetry. The MC Journal examines the future of literary publishing and wonders what the fuss is all about, Jonathan Lethem is to begin teaching at Pomona College next fall, Zadie Smith’s third novel is a ‘beautiful’ achievement, and Benjamin Black’s latest tale is excerpted in the Elegant Variation. Elsewhere, academic writing is taken to task in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the importance of high-quality literary translation is reiterated by Tim Parks in the Observer. If that’s not a marriage of literary culture, we don’t know what is. — Kevin Murphy

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Where's Lenin?

We took the weekend off from all things internet — No online book reviews, no Web profiles, no social media or email. Nothing, completely off the grid. And we have to say, it was rather pleasant. But like all good things, our disconnectedness must too come to an end. So now it’s Monday. And, man, do we sure have a lot of catching up to do! We’ll start off by reading about Jane Austen’s rise to literary stardom, and then shift gears a little and learn about James Earl Ray’s tormented and evil life. Next on the list: Playwrights. And how the ambition to learn, produce excellent drama and get it into the hands of people in the know results in an epic struggle, one that still manages to trip up the likes of David Mamet. Another David, this one with the last name of Mitchell — you know, the novelist — is chatting up his latest effort in the Times Online, Lydia Davis’s collection of short fiction is spotlighted in the New York Review of Books, and the murky death of Federico García Lorca is revisited by Harper’s Magazine. Finally, in what will appropriately finish our internet-reading-dominated morning, we turn to the one and only Christopher Hitchens, who casts fresh appraisal on Animal Farm, and then begs the question, “Where is Lenin?” Pray tell, Mr. Hitchens. Pray tell. — Kevin Murphy

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Got A Minute?

For your reading pleasure: Here’s roughly an hour’s worth of literary distraction for this, the cruelest day of the workweek. Rise above your cubicle and visit Nice, where prize-winning French author JMG Le Clézio discusses the early days of his writing career. Next it’s off to Saudi Arabia, where poets perform on television and are rewarded for their skills. Then head to Denver, the location of this year’s AWP conference, where Steve Almond, writing in the Rumpus, delivers a how-to-behave manual for fledgling scribes. The shortlist for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award has been announced; Open Books — that venerable Seattle hotspot of poetry collections — is celebrating a milestone; Deborah Eisenberg praises Skylark, a novel by Dezso Kosztolányi, and Derrida gets his treatment from N + 1. See, we’ve traveled the literary world in just a couple of minutes. Want to keep going? Then read on, you literary vagabonds. — Kevin Murphy

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Up From The Muck

Jesus has risen. Spring has sprung. And yet the world remains an evil place. Okay, that’s a lousy outlook. But we need the bad in order to enjoy the good, right? When the bad Monday blues strike, it’s a very good thing to know that stacks of books and articles are just waiting for us to get home and read them. To start, we’ll read Rain Taxi’s interview with Mary Karr. Then it’s off to Richard Yates, whose brilliant work is memorialized in the Guardian. St. Clair McKelway was a witty, masterful writer of profiles; SF Gate explains how his New Yorker articles from the early 20th century have stood the test of time. An iconic photograph revered for its acute social portrait is examined in Intelligent Life, bloggers search for their literary place, and translations get a Quixotic makeover. Finally, John Banville is known for his flawless prose. But what happens when Banville’s alter-ego takes the helm? Just like Monday, the answer is a potent mixture of good and bad. — Kevin Murphy

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