Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
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The Rumpus Interview with Jonathan Ames
Maybe my work isn’t a cry for help. It may just be a baby’s need to cry or a dog’s need to bark.
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Too Many Inkblots?
In the last few months, Wikipedia has been in debate with psychologists who are upset that Rorschach inkblot plates can be easily found online. Because the Rorschach tests are displayed with common responses to the open-ended questions doctors pose while…
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Movies Briefly: Not Quite Hollywood, 2009
If, as Quentin Tarantino believes, the real core of exploitation cinema is found in images so crazy you cannot believe your eyes, then the new film about the history of Australian exploitation, Not Quite Hollywood, not only documents its subject,…
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Apple’s rumored Tablet: what’s it for?
Rumors of a new device supposedly being prepared by Apple for a release sometime in the next five months are flying this morning after an FT.com story which describes about a flat, rectangular device with which users would interact by…
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Vollmann’s ‘Imperial’ country
William T. Vollmann, the author whose exhaustive research helps to blur the line between fiction and nonfiction, and whose books tend to be measured by the pound, has a new book coming out titled Imperial. The 1300-page tome looks at…
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The Rumpus Interview with Sam Anderson
“An ideal, awesome job,”—that’s how Sam Anderson, at several points in our conversation, describes his position as book critic for New York Magazine.
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Morning Coffee
“In 1873, they reunited in Brussels, but it took only two days before Verlaine bought a gun and got drunk and shot Rimbaud in the wrist.” LA Times on famous literary feuds. Terrastories brings you the only known pictures inside…
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Richard Nash’s Next Venture
“Soft Skull began at a Kinko’s in 1993 courtesy of Adobe and Xerox. It started with fewer resources and far less maturity and experience than, say, Seven Stories, Arcade, Manic D or New Press. But we all benefited from the…
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Bait and Switch
Like a well-planned itinerary, the blueprints of James Lasdun’s stories are thoughtfully delineated, and each step feels purposeful and sure.
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The Rise of the Cover
Some people think cover songs are for people who don’t like music; I happen to see them as heart-warming love letters from adoring fans, and at their greatest, revealing other aspects the song didn’t even know it had. Stephen Elliott…
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Dave Eggers: The Last Book I Loved, Destiny Disrupted
I’m in the middle of Tamim Ansary’s Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes, and it’s incredibly illuminating. Ansary pretty much covers the entire history of Islam in an incredibly readable and lucid way. I’ve been recommending this…