Posts by author
Ben Shattuck
-
First and Last Songs: The Extinct Song of the Kaua‘i ‘Ö‘ö
I wanted to talk to someone who might have heard the last animal at the end of its species’ five-million-year run on earth.
-
Philip Roth at His Old “Jewing Grounds”
I can’t think of anybody I’d be more intimidated to interview than Philip Roth. He won the National Book Award at twenty-seven and later the Pulitzer; he has thirty books under his belt and has become throbbing heart of American…
-
Batuman’s Kafka
Franz Kafka, a hunch-backed best friend, a violated will, an escape from Nazis, ten safe-deposit boxes spanning two countries, smuggled papers, missing letters, fifty feet of files, four Israeli lawyers, and ‘an untold number’ (40-100) of cats: the eighty-six-years-worth the…
-
What’s Your Writing Ritual if Not Dozing Off with Metal Balls in Your Hands?
How do we write? Supposedly Benjamin Franklin, after depriving himself of sleep, would sit with metal balls in his hands, his arms dangling at his sides. He would fall asleep, the balls would hit the floor: Ben would wake, snatch…
-
The Last Book I Loved: Sailing Alone Around the World
“Remember, Lord, my ship is small and thy sea is so wide!” – Joshua Slocum, sailing through a storm south of Tierra del Fuego. When Joshua Slocum (author of Sailing Alone Around the World, first published in Great Britain by…
-
English Authors Offended By the Present Tense
England: land of quibblers. Some of the nation’s top writers are at the throat of the present tense. Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, said, “I just don’t read present-tense novels any more. It’s a silly affectation,…