It’s Wednesday, which means that it’s time for another roundup of things we think you might want to read from book blogs around the Internet. Since last time, the Internet has been abuzz with the idiosyncrasies and failings of canonical authors. Below the fold, lots of that, a ranking of poets by their beard weight, a great interview with Chloe Aridjis, and a surprising reaction to Britain’s new poet laureate.
Jacket Copy shares a photo of a Charles Dickens’ letter opener, complete with a handle made from the paw of his dead cat.
<HTMLGiant> finds a memoir full of hate for Sylvia Plath written by Dido Merwin. Featured in the appendix of a new biography on the poet by Anne Stevenson, Merwin manages to make Plath sound like a precursor to Kanye West: “Otherness made her uneasy. What she needed was the reassurance of docile doppelgangers and supportive soul mates and yes-persons.”
Mark Athitakis writes about Oklahoma’s frustration with its portrayal in The Grapes of Wrath: “It’s Oklahomans, not Okies.”
And Readerville links to the blog A Journey Around My Skull, where the author reprints the rank of poets by the weight of their beards.
In other news, Rigoberto Gonzales recommends five Mexican books in grudging honor of Cinco de Mayo on Critical Mass, the Guardian’s book blog reacts to Britain’s first ever female poet laureate by calling for an end to the whole business of laureates in the first place, and a fascinating interview with Chloe Aridjis about portraying Berlin through the eyes of a very unreliable narrator on Bookslut.
