The Managing Editors are (independently) in trouble for having both (entirely without guile) misgendered Cormac McCarthy.
To do list:
A reader asked the Managing Editors this weekend how to subscribe. If they’re not mistaken, it’s very simple: just push the big yellow button.
Links:
The WRB is good for many things, but the Managing Editors cannot, unfortunately, advise you on how to order “farm implements and carpentry tools, Volkswagen repair manuals and Carlos Castañeda novels, bamboo flutes, calculators, Army surplus jackets, and potters’ wheels, as well as larger “tools” like canoes and geodesic domes.” While we’re trying to remember what it is we are useful for, you can read in The New Republic about Stewart Brand, the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog.
The Drift is back with a new issue, and this one has a symposium on contemporary literary fiction that is worth reading in its entirety. [But mostly Lorentzen’s one had some very funny lines. —Chris] [When will the Dave Eggers abuse stop! —Nic] [Andrew Martin and Hannah Gold had actually good points. —Chris]
Two from the Dublin Review of Books: Tim Murphy reviews a new book of Anne Tannam’s poems, and Daniel Mulhall reviews a new book about the history of Ulysses.
For First Things, John-Paul Heil reviews a book mentioned in our April 5th issue, In Praise of Good Bookstores by Jeff Deutsch: “Deutsch emphasizes the therapeutic qualities of good bookstores, which ‘have long served as a great succor for those contending with loneliness,’ but he ultimately limits the transcendent to the human.”
N.B.:
LARB is hiring a Senior Editor. Apply by June 21st.
Noah Baumbach’s White Noise adaptation is a complete mess, we are told.
Spotify is planning on moving into audiobooks, and we admit that the prospect of mixing a chapter of a book into a playlist, while not exactly easy listening, has some extreme comical potential.
Lapham’s Quarterly is having a sale on back issues. Code: SUM22
The New York Public Library is giving away 500,000 books. All you need is a library card. [Even as a non-resident, I found it shockingly easy to get one. —Nic] [And yet we try to give away one and no one responds! —Chris]
Some guy is making a movie about Matt Drudge. [Someone has to, I guess. —Nic]
We were disappointed to find that nowhere in Washington is hosting a Bloomsday read-through [I seem to remember it being widespread in past years. —Nic], but you can always tune into this streamed read-through, or, if you have thirty free hours, do it yourself.
If you’ve switched on the radio at any time in the last few weeks, you know that “Running Up That Hill” is having a bit of a revival. Who knows, maybe something from The Dreaming will crack the top ten next.
You’re probably too late for the gala [What happened to that anyway? —Nic], but you can still get a New York Sun hat, along with all sorts of other merch.
While we’re on the subject, has anyone checked in on the Underberg store lately? They have a number of bizarre things: umbrellas, aprons, bike bags, pocket watches—for whom? How many people really drink that stuff?
Upcoming books:
YESTERDAY | Grove
Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me
by Ada Calhoun
From the publisher: When Ada Calhoun stumbled upon old cassette tapes of interviews her father, celebrated art critic Peter Schjeldahl, had conducted for his never-completed biography of poet Frank O’Hara, she set out to finish the book her father had started forty years earlier.
As a lifelong O’Hara fan who grew up amid his bohemian cohort in the East Village, Calhoun thought the project would be easy, even fun, but the deeper she dove, the more she had to face not just O’Hara’s past, but also her father’s, and her own.
The result is a groundbreaking and kaleidoscopic memoir that weaves compelling literary history with a moving, honest, and tender story of a complicated father-daughter bond. Also a Poet explores what happens when we want to do better than our parents, yet fear what that might cost us; when we seek their approval, yet mistrust it.
In reckoning with her unique heritage, as well as providing new insights into the life of one of our most important poets, Calhoun offers a brave and hopeful meditation on parents and children, artistic ambition, and the complexities of what we leave behind.
[To make up for featuring a book that was out yesterday in the Upcoming books section, here’s a review.
On Saturday I asked for more book trailers. Penguin Press has delivered! The strange trailer for Lapovna, the upcoming Ottessa Moshfegh novel we mentioned last week, was released on Monday. If you’ve seen enough and want to know more, Harpers has an excerpt. —Chris]
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