Morning Coffee
Mysterious Russian Ice Rings! An annotated first sentence of William Gass’ “On Being Blue.” As a life long ornithophobiac people tend to think I’m irrational. How then do you explain…
Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
Writing New Orleans
In the introduction to Guernica Magazine’s New Orleans-themed September edition, editor Pia Ehrhardt writes: “When friends from out of town come to visit, my husband, Malcolm, and I put them…
How Not to Be Boring
Tim O’Brien has a really brilliant article in The Atlantic in which he argues that the biggest problem with “unsuccessful stories” is, to put it quite simply, that “they are…
Glenn Beck is the New John Updike
“For the past nine months, ever since a certain somebody seized the White House, conservative pundits have dominated the ranks of nonfiction. … It would be easy enough, and rather…
The Rumpus Sunday Book Blog Roundup
Your humble Rumpus Sunday Editor is smitten. Over the last couple weeks, the book blogs have been in form, publishing intelligent, hilarious, insightful, and riveting posts. In a word, they’ve…
The Rumpus Sunday Book Review Supplement
It’s been a real humdinger of a week at Rumpus Books. Come see what we have.
Poetic Lives Online: Links by Brian Spears
It’s Saturday night, the skies are cloudy, and the satellite reception keeps cutting in and out. Guess it’s time for some poetry links. I don’t generally link to poetry reviews…
Error Correction or Information Control?
Great piece by Anthony Gottlieb over at The Economist on one potentially big upside for e-readers over books–the ability to correct errors in real time, without the expense of pushing…
Don’t Miss the 2009 Brooklyn Book Festival: Sunday September 13
Reasons to attend the 2009 Brooklyn Book Festival: 1) it’s one of the most hip, smart and diverse American literary events, 2) because Ben Marcus, Sarah Manguso, Thurston Moore, Heidi…
Swinging Modern Sounds #14: Nine Thousand Words On The Size Queens
The following is a record review in dialogue form conducted between this columnist and Michael Snediker (with whom I corresponded about Antony and the Johnsons a couple months back), the…