Posts by author
Nikita Schoen
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“Chance and Accident”
Over at The Smart Set, Morgan Mels writes something of a love letter to Marcel Duchamp, considering shame, chance and Romanticism, and the influences of each in Duchamp’s work. Probably not for those of you who fidget anxiously at the mention…
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That Very Special Reason
Eric G. Wilson has given up on the many possible higher education-approved, poet-referencing justifications for devoting your time to literary study. He will simply tell you, “Poetry makes you weird.” And in that we rejoice! Read further and explore the…
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when history is narrative-driven
Over at the Los Angeles Review of Books, Jim Hinch reveals the holes in Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve. Hinch asks how a book which repeatedly gets its facts and insinuations wrong could have been recognized with awards like the National Book Award…
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“At a word’s notice!”
Have you ever snuck up to your bookshelf and pretended to see through a stranger’s eyes, imagining what someone who didn’t know you would gather from the titles perched there, the spines pristine or riddled with the worn lines of…
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A reading list to swoon over
As we mentioned earlier this week, The Millions has unleashed their A Year In Reading series, providing you the perfect road map for your continuing literary journey! If that wasn’t dance-a-little-jig exciting, our very own Roxane Gay has her own…
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Are you there, Judy? It’s us, all of us
The Los Angeles Review of Books features a triplet of delicious essays on Judy Blume books and their influence on each author as they navigated the harsh terrain of their pre- and teenage years. In “Judy Blume Was Right: On…
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thank goodness for the authors
“You may have heard the news that the independent bookstore is dead, that books are dead, that maybe even reading is dead—to which I say: Pull up a chair, friend. I have a story to tell.” Over at The Atlantic,…
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Written Word as Basic Need
Junot Diaz, Toni Morrison, Edwidge Danticat, Dave Eggers, Joyce Carol Oates and countless other authors, intellectuals and humanitarian efforts, such as Libraries Without Borders, agree: books should be a part of emergency relief efforts. They’ve all come together to sign…
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Andrew Solomon: not afraid to go there
Andrew Solomon’s “Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity” seems like a book we might like. Solomon cuts to the heart of the many possible events and conditions that throw a family into chaos and the…
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Brothers Grimm Redux
Mother Jones interviews Phillip Pullman, author of the Dark Materials series, about his new book–a collection of stories retelling the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. “When I first started writing, I tried to [write in a modern style], but I…
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Long Live The Crosshatching
The Guardian offers a podcast of Robert and Aline Crumb in conversation about their new book Drawn Together, a collection of autobiographical comic strips they’ve created together over the past 40 years. The podcast also discusses some contemporary award-winning graphic…
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When editing gets in the way of love
Ah, editors. They sure do know what’s best. McSweeney’s features Jimmy Chen’s take on what Gordon Lish might have done to Raymond Carver’s OkCupid profile. If you want the lowdown on the real struggle between Carver and Lish, take a…