October 8, 2012 On the Shelf Politics, Nerds, Gunpowder By Sadie Stein Cormac McCarthy’s notes reveal a recipe for gunpowder and a very different Blood Meridian. Goodreads compares the reading habits of Romney and Obama supporters. J. K. Rowling returns to children’s fiction. “Using adverbs is a mortal sin,” and other rules for writing fiction from prominent writers. Ten essential reads for books nerds. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
October 8, 2012 Bulletin Introducing the Paris Review App! By The Paris Review As reported in The New York Times, we’re thrilled to announce the launch of our iPad/iPhone app! On it you’ll find new issues, rare back issues, and archival collections—along with our complete interview series and the Paris Review Daily. And if you download the app by October 21, you’ll receive the current issue, along with an archival issue—Spring 1958, featuring an interview with Ernest Hemingway, early fiction by Philip Roth, and a portfolio by Alberto Giacometti—for free! To current print subscribers: stay tuned! Soon you’ll be granted digital access to any issue covered by your print subscription. Look for an e-mail from us in the next week or two with details on how to set up your account. And to those with Android devices: we hope to have a version for you soon!
October 5, 2012 Windows on the World Etgar Keret, Tel Aviv, Israel By Matteo Pericoli A series on what writers from around the world see from their windows. The nicest place I ever got to write in was in MacDowell. My studio there was surrounded by a beautiful snowy forest, and looking out of the windows I could often see deer. During my residency there a friend came to visit. After having a beer together he said, “There is so much beauty around you, yet I can see from the angle at which your computer is placed that when you write all you can see is the toilet. Why is that?” The answer was simple. When I write, what I see around me is the landscape of my story. I only get to enjoy the real one when I’m done. In the Keret family tradition my writing space is always one of the least desirable spots in our apartment, a place which only a person who is busy writing can bear. Currently it is a small metal table placed between the living room and the kitchen. The moment I stop writing I can notice on the other side of the road a beautiful grand tree allegedly planted sixty years ago by one of Israel’s finest children poets as well as the happy mess my son and I left on the balcony the day before, but this is just for a moment, most of the time I just see my stories which are usually much messier than the balcony floor. —Etgar Keret [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
October 5, 2012 Look But What Is He Reading? By Sadie Stein Something method, obviously. Via The Nifty Fifties [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
October 5, 2012 This Week’s Reading What We’re Loving: Pippi, Airports, Purses By The Paris Review If you’ve only ever seen the awkwardly acted 1969 film Pippi Longstocking, in which Pippi tokes up with her young friends (not to mention Peppi Dlinnyychulok, the very weird Soviet version), you’re in for a treat. In the late fifties, Pippi author Astrid Lindgren published a comic strip about her precocious young heroine in the Swedish children’s magazine Humpty Dumpty. Drawn & Quarterly is bringing these strips to the U.S. for the first time ever, and while they’re fun to read, the best part—hands down—is Ingrid Vang Nyman’s art. Relying on bold blocks of color and bright, simple designs, the panels are midcentury children’s art at its finest. —Nicole Rudick What would you do if you were a passenger in a hijacked plane that circles the Dallas metropolitan area for over twenty years? An interesting question, to say the least, and one Manuel Gonazales proposes in the first story, “Pilot, Copilot, Writer,” in his Borgesian debut, The Miniature Wife: and Other Stories. However, instead of dwelling on the fantastical and farfetched elements of the plot, Gonzales concentrates on the interactions between the passengers, the emotions that birth from the subtle tragedy of plane travel that extends well beyond some of the character’s years. The routines of ordinary life never seemed so extraordinary. —Justin Alvarez Read More
October 5, 2012 On the Shelf Zagat, Library Science, Cheap Thrills By Sadie Stein The Library of Unborrowed Books. In the new Halloween-ready Horrible Hauntings, a book of classic ghost stories is paired with an app, which allows you to summon Bloody Mary, sail with the Flying Dutchman, and otherwise terrify any child in your life. Sick of stereotypes, one group of librarians shows what the real thing looks like. A Bay Area 2013 Zagat guide was recalled after it was discovered that San Francisco was misspelled on the spine. If you want to hear John Waters read a steamy scene from oft-banned Lady Chatterley’s Lover, well, you’ve come to the right place. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]