I was first introduced to artist Anthony Cudahy in 2011, when I interviewed him for Guernica. I was moved by his fleeting scenes of silence—a woman pinning a boutonniere on an unseen man’s tuxedo jacket, two girls hugging in a bedroom while one s…
All this week, we are bringing you some of your favorite posts from 2013. Happy holidays! I had only been in Europe for two weeks when I started to feel homesick. I’d decided to study in Florence on a whim, after having vaguely planned my entire …
Selected from AbeBooks’ Weird Book Room.
“Jonathan Franzen gripe” or “YouTube comment about saggy pants”? You be the judge. Forget condoms and turn instead to Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Gogol, according to a Russian children’s ombudsman. Says Pavel Astakhov, “The best sex education …
How does one document his or her life? Do you track the minute details of each and every day in a diary, like Ned Rorem, or measure it out with coffee spoons, as J. Alfred Prufrock declared? When digging through the last boxes and cases from his gran…
For the first time in its sixty-three-year history, the National Book Foundation has published longlists for each of its four award categories. The fiction longlist was announced this morning, and it features a range of celebrated and debut authors…
Booktryst highlights well-known lepidopterist Vladimir Nabokov’s butterfly drawings. Has the Royal Hall from Beowulf been found? Archaeologists believe they now know the location of the hall where Hrothgar’s warriors once feasted. Cal O’Mar…
Now we’re making it really easy for you! For those readers who were unable to catch James Salter, Mona Simpson, Lorin Stein, and John Jeremiah Sullivan discussing The Paris Review’s sixtieth anniversary on Charlie Rose, are you ever in luck! You can …
Tune in tonight to Charlie Rose for a conversation with editor Lorin Stein, James Salter, Mona Simpson, and John Jeremiah Sullivan on the sixtieth anniversary of The Paris Review. Trust us, it’s an engaging interview—even Kevin Spacey agrees. …
Inside the Rainbow: Russian Children’s Literature 1920–35: Beautiful Books, Terrible Times is a stunning compendium of illustrations from the twenties and thirties. As Philip Pullman writes in his introduction, In the dark and dangerous world of r…
“Would I be thought of as the biological father, just a donor, not at all?” “What is the effect of sildenafil citrate on stout-bodied passerines?” “What was the annual per capita gross national income of China at the time of ejaculation…