Features & Reviews
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Itsi Dreamt That He Went to the Forest
These illustrations are by Isaachar Ryback for In the Forest, a 1922 children’s book by Kvitko. Ryback was a painter born in the Ukraine in 1897. He settled in Berlin in October 1921 and became a member of the Novembergruppe…
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“When I’m Thirsty and When I’m Not”
“Charles Baudelaire (1821 – 1867): Booze, Opium; Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849): Alcohol, Opiates; Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 – 1861): Opium; Stephen King (1947 – present): Booze, Cocaine, Prescription Meds; Dorothy Parker (1893 – 1967): Alcohol; Brendan Behan (1923…
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Bloomsbury Whitewashes Again
Not long ago Bloomsbury published author Justine Larbalestier’s novel Liar, which revolves around an African-American protagonist, with a white girl’s face on the cover. The choice was made against Larbalestier’s wishes and to the shock of many readers, and Bloomsbury eventually…
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A Cockerel Device
These wood engravings all come from books published by The Golden Cockerel Press, a private press operating in England between 1920 and 1961. I was scanning from a 1975 American book Bibliography of The Golden Cockerel Press, 1921 – 1949…
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Notable San Francisco, This Week: 1/25-1/31
This week: Work on the memoir you’ve always wanted to write with Michelle Tea, dance to benefit Doctors Without Borders at San Francisco Hearts Haiti, watch SF IndieFest take over Portrero Hill venues, and get your mixtape on at The…
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The Country Where No One Ever Dies
The Albanian, in Ornela Vorpsi’s comic novel, is someone prone to megalomania, and who has one obsession “dearer to them than death… Fornication.”
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Notable New York, This Week 1/25 – 1/31
This week in New York Lydia Davis and Richard Howard read, John Wray, Heidi Julavits and Sarah Manguso discuss ebooks at Melville House, Of Montreal and Damon & Naomi perform, Lapham’s Quarterly celebrates the launch of its Religion Issue, artists…
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Alice, 106
At 106 years old, Alice Herz-Sommer is profiled in Haaretz. She is a musician, Holocaust survivor, and is also said to be the last living acquaintance of Kafka.
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The Rumpus International Rivers Interview #3: Sasa Stanisic on the Danube
Sasa Stanisic was born in what is now Bosnia-Herzegovina and lived there until 1992, at which point his family fled the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia. He currently resides in Germany. How The Soldier Repairs the Gramophone (2008), Stanisic’s first book,…
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Too Much Fun With The OED
It looks like Nick Martens over at The Bygone Bureau is having too much fun with his OED subscription. “To those who would say that there is nothing “secret” about the publicly available Oxford English Dictionary, or that browsing said…
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Rumpus Books Sunday Supplement
This week, Rumpus books published pieces about fucking and writing, A Common Pornography, and Folksy Fruit. Also, there was an interview with Jonathan Lethem.
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Vollmann on Prostitution
“Well, I’m getting older, so I can’t get it up as much as I used to. […] I think prostitutes are amazing people with so much knowledge of human nature and so many fantastic stories. Some of them are scam…