{"id":12416,"date":"2011-03-04T13:10:33","date_gmt":"2011-03-04T18:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=12416"},"modified":"2018-12-11T13:06:32","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T18:06:32","slug":"staff-picks-comparing-backbones-jennifer-egan%e2%80%99s-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/04\/staff-picks-comparing-backbones-jennifer-egan%e2%80%99s-journalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks: Comparing Backbones, Jennifer Egan\u2019s Journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Christopher Sorrentino sent me <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/viewer?a=v&amp;pid=explorer&amp;chrome=true&amp;srcid=0B9DS_zk2FintNjY2ZTllMWEtN2Q4OS00OTY0LWJiNzktYmJkNzlhOTkzMGYz&amp;hl=en\">this curiosity<\/a>: a version of the David Foster Wallace story \u201cBackbone\u201d that compares the recent <em>New Yorker<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/fiction\/features\/2011\/03\/07\/110307fi_fiction_wallace\">version<\/a> to a transcript of Wallace reading the story in 2000. \u2014<strong>Lorin Stein<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Jennifer Egan kicks off the new <em>New York Times Magazine<\/em> with a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/03\/06\/magazine\/06berenson-t.html\">cover story about Lori Berenson<\/a>. \u2014<strong>Thessaly La Force<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re in the mood for having your brain bent ever so slightly out of shape, I recommend the lean, astringent fairy tales collected in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/books\/01\/01\/21\/reviews\/010121.21seymout.html\">Sylvia Townsend Warner<\/a>\u2019s <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Kingdoms-Elfin-Sylvia-Townsend-Warner\/dp\/0440544998\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1299256397&amp;sr=8-1\">Kingdoms of Elfin<\/a><\/em>. Originally published in <em>The New Yorker<\/em>, just a few years before Angela Carter took her postmodern butcher knife to classics like \u201cPuss in Boots,\u201d they came at the end of an utterly singular literary life that quietly stretched across the last century. Warner\u2019s fairies are humanly imperfect and the world they inhabit is mean and capricious, but the writing itself is a substance for which it is worth developing an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/books\/authors\/sylvia-townsend-warner\/\">addiction<\/a>. \u2014<strong>Jonathan Gharraie<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This week I was sad to learn about the passing of Reverend Peter Gomes, Harvard\u2019s Plummer Professor of Christian Morals. Among the many articles reflecting on his remarkable career in academics, politics, and religious life, I found <a href=\"http:\/\/voices.washingtonpost.com\/compost\/2011\/03\/remembering_reverend_gomes_his.html\">this blog post<\/a>, which includes many quotes by him, as a perfect tribute to both his sense of humor and immense wisdom. He will be greatly missed. \u2014<strong>Natalie Jacoby <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Growing up among the alligator-infested swamps of South Florida,\u00a0Paul Kwiatkowski reminisces about his middle-school exploits in \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/annalemma.net\/features\/lions.html\">Lions<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0an excerpt from an\u00a0upcoming novel and photo essay called \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/paulkmedia.com\/index.php?\/project\/reportage\/\">And Every Day Was Overcast<\/a>.\u201d \u2014<strong>Angela Melamud<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Who can keep up with events in the Middle East? So many dictators falling, so many squares full of people. One of the most acute and comprehensive sites for analysis is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jadaliyya.com\/\">Jadaliyya<\/a>\u2014a cooperative of academics, journalists, and other informed people. I\u2019ve been reading it constantly for the past month. \u2014<strong>Robyn Creswell <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christopher Sorrentino sent me this curiosity: a version of the David Foster Wallace story \u201cBackbone\u201d that compares the recent New Yorker version to a transcript of Wallace reading the story in 2000. \u2014Lorin Stein Jennifer Egan kicks off the new New York Times Magazine with a cover story about Lori Berenson. \u2014Thessaly La Force If [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[438],"tags":[1622,1870,883],"class_list":["post-12416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-weeks-reading","tag-friday-reads","tag-recommendation","tag-staff-picks"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO 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