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Rumpus Articles
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Bound/Unbound
Edie Meidav interviews writer-activist Quintan Ana Wikswo for Conjunctions on her novel of text and image, The Hope of Floating Has Carried Us This Far (Coffee House), and her unusual biography. The conversation ranges from Wikswo’s childhood spent mostly alone…
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No Mystery
The books we read in childhood don’t always hold up to our memories of them. Sometimes it’s just a matter of juvenile or bad writing, but other times, it’s the author’s prejudices that turn us off as adults—and classic detective stories…
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Radiohead’s Latest Cartoon
Radiohead’s new music video “Burn the Witch” has debuted, and uses imagery reminiscent of a classic British children’s cartoon to render its very unsettling message about the spread of hate in (we’re just guessing, but trust that the allegory is quite…
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Are You Living an E.M. Forster Novel?
Ever feel like your life feels eerily drawn out of A Room With a View or Howard’s End? Check off this checklist and find out if you’re in a whirlwind of irony and hypocrisy.
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An Actress Recommends Five Classic Films to Her Child
Surprise is only one of many aspects of human behavior. There are dozens. Maybe even a hundred.
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Maybe-True, Half-Hearted Hemingway in Havana
Papa: Hemingway in Cuba is a recently released film from director Bob Yari following the maybe-true misadventures of the late Hemingway and his years in Cuba, where he lived, drank, and complained after winning the Nobel Prize for fiction. A…
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Remembering Jenny Diski
At n+1, philosopher and writer Justin E.H. Smith remembers Jenny Diski, and shares their correspondence. For Diski, death was always the subject, the knot to admire, wryly, and attempt to untie: …the year before her diagnosis, Jenny invokes the bleak…
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Notable Portland: 5/5–5/11
Thursday 5/5: Slamlandia hosts its inaugural slam. The slam will be two rounds with 3-minute time limit. Hot Lips Hawthorne, 6 p.m., $1 suggested donation. Robert Hill reads from his latest novel, The Remnants. Another Read Through, 7 p.m., free.…
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When Computers Choose Which Novels to Publish
We’re used to Amazon producing recommendations alongside books we buy, but are we prepared for a world where computerized data also picks what gets published? Inkitt, an electronic publishing platform, has announced that they will be utilizing algorithms to pick…
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(Attractive) Debut Novelists Earn Millions
Emma Cline received $2m advance for The Girls, due out in June, which puts her near the top of a growing list of first-time writers with advances in the millions. Last year, City on Fire earned Garth Risk Hallberg a $2m…
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A Curious Land by Susan Muaddi Darraj
Amina Gautier reviews A Curious Land by Susan Muaddi Darraj today in Rumpus Books.
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Don’t Judge a Book…
In the Court of Po Biz, I tend to relate to the jester. Over at Entropy, John Yohe does some quick name-checking and decides, a little cynically, by the blurb, that Robyn Schiff’s new book, A Woman of Property, is…