Jonathan Safran Foer named his first novel after this line from The Unbearable Lightness of Being: “In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.” How many of the following quotation-titles can you identify?
Read MoreWrite This Book! is a series in which Julia Langbein describes a book that does not exist — yet. Today, she urges you to retell the story of Gerard Depardieu's "defection" to Russia in the soul-stirring, door-busting style of Mitch Albom.
Read MoreReading Ali Smith's new book Artful, at once a series of real-life Oxford lectures and a metafictional post-love story, I felt compelled to make a list of her countless references to art and literature. Here are nine of them — nine piercing observations that also articulate the book's romantic arc.
Read MoreI was completely absorbed in the latest Anna Karenina — until the blond, curly-haired girlyman Vronsky showed up. Like just about everybody, I've had my loves and frustrations with the film versions of beloved books. Let me share some of them with you.
Read MoreA weekly series that celebrates everyone’s favorite part of the author
reading: the Q&A. This week, John Green and Neil Gaiman impart some advice onto aspiring novelists.
Need to know which George Saunders book to read next? Black Balloon has you covered. What follows is the order in which I would save his four short story collections from a burning building, though I swear to you I would gladly burn my delicate, immaculately maintained hands on each and every one of them.
Read MoreAll three of the Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra’s books in translation, including the latest, Ways of Going Home, are short enough to read in single bites. Join me as I pair each book with some choice reading spots.
Read MoreWelcome to Clementine’s Weekly Reading Series, where Clem the hedgehog talks about whatever she is currently reading. This week: Tenth of December by George Saunders.
Read MoreA weekly series that celebrates everyone’s favorite part of the author
reading: the Q&A. This week, short story writer George Saunders explains why we need a new definition of the word "novel."
Minimalist
writers are everywhere. They write the blogs you peruse, the copy on your cereal box and, of course, the pithy tweets you glance over every morning. Let's look at their pre-social media forebears — from Sappho to Bukowski — and imagine what their Twitter accounts would look like.
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