Posts Tagged: Bookforum

The Rumpus Interview with Tobias Carroll

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Tobias Carroll discusses his newest collection Transitory, the influence of film on his writing, and getting good news at bad times.

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The Read Along: Megha Majumdar

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Megha Majumdar on Russian spies, child-sized newspapers, and why reading difficult fiction can invigorate, rather than depress.

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The Rumpus Interview with Amy Sohn

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At the end of the day, all we have to hold onto, really, is other people’s stories. And that’s how Alizah Solario’s series “Writers on Wheels Getting Tea” was born. The first interview features author Amy Sohn.

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The Rumpus Interview with Bruce Bauman

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Bruce Bauman discusses his latest book, Broken Sleep, why rock isn’t dead (yet), how humor makes life bearable, and why we should reinstate the draft.

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Dog Sees God

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A preacher cares for his daughter’s child while she has a nervous breakdown in a foreign land. A teenager watches her mother slowly die. Another teen mourns his father, who that summer had been “executed by the state of Florida.” Deb Olin Unferth reviews Joy Williams’s short stories for Bookforum.

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The Greatest Experimentalist You’ve Never Heard Of

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She felt that this approach illuminated a fundamental truth about language: The very act of using language, she once told an interviewer, involves a ‘castration. The moment we utter a sentence, we’re leaving out a lot.’ A “nanopress” has begun reissuing the work of novelist, poet, and essayist Christine Brooke-Rose, who died in 2012. The author […]

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The End of the Diary

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Over at Bookforum, Caitlin Johnson touches base with Sarah Manguso about her new memoir Ongoingness: The End of a Diary, motherhood, and a lifetime spent recording memories and experiences. And for even more on Ongoingness, and Manguso’s thoughts about how motherhood does (or doesn’t) change being a writer, check out our own recent interview with the poet and writer.

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An Open Letter

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On her blog today, respected critic Ruth Franklin wrote an open letter to the editors of Bookforum. She writes: I have considered opting out of writing for magazines at which women are not represented among the top editors, such as Bookforum. But such a policy would naturally be counter to my stated intent. So I’ve resolved to […]

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Migrations Map

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Here is a map to help you visualize human migration over the course of our 200,000 year existence. Using data based on mitochondrial DNA difference, the map models migratory patterns as humans “moved outward from Africa into Asia, and later the Americas, Indonesia and Australia.” The visual distinguishes between land and water or temporary land/ice […]

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Bookforum Love

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Bookforum’s daily roundup of internet gems shone their literary spotlight on our poetry editor Brian Spears whose piece “The Death and Resurrection of BlazeVOX,” we recently published. We wanted to reciprocate the love. So, here it is. We love you back, Bookforum! And if you want to know about the recent BlazeVOX controversy, the contemporary […]

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Young Artist, Mean World

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The art world is a rough place, which is the practical thought behind art schools offering courses on grant-writing and portfolio building. Still, even with the presence of these utilitarian courses, when embarking on your formative artistic education, how can you conceive of the difficulties ahead? Not just the capitalistic ones, but the problems with […]

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The Elusive Best Seller

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“The best seller is caught in a peculiar paradox: Its popularity can be understood as both proof and negation of its value.” The term “best seller,” is in question. Bookforum has an essay on how the term is more of a hyperbolic designation with a shifting definition, than one that is clear-cut and quantifiable. With […]

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Let’s Take a Walk Together

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James Yeh writes on the Spontaneous Society for Faster Times, Jon Cotner’s ambulatory, real-life interaction/art installation, inciting strangers to interact positively with one another. The project was created in hopes of reigniting a certain kind of social spontaneity that is lost on all of us by way of headphones and fast-paced lifestyles. It’s been garnering […]

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Reimagining The Memoir

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“That it is being considered as book of criticism, rather than as memoir, seems the luck of the draw. Some of the essays in it were originally published in the guise of book reviews, but they always jump the rails of literary journalism and go off on their own course — assessing not just the […]

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More Pacazo

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“It’s a shaggy-dog tale, one that eventually—boldly—invites comparison to its great progenitor, Don Quixote. In cutting a classic wide swath, Pacazo exposes itself to risk, a tricky balance between hilarity and horror. By and large, though, this rangy novel earns its claim to the old knight’s inheritance.” John Domini at Bookforum gives a great review […]

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The Fearless Book Vending Machine

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“Lane’s other invention, alongside the cheap, quality paperback, was the Penguincubator, first installed outside Henderson’s (the ‘Bomb Shop’) at 66 Charing Cross Road, which signaled his intention to take the book beyond the library and the traditional bookstore, into railway stations, chain stores and onto the streets. It is worth noting, given publishers’ frequent timidity […]

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Totalitarian Kitsch

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“It is the official art of authoritarian governments, aimed at extending state control through propaganda. Totalitarian kitsch exists to glorify the state, foster a personality cult surrounding the dictator and celebrate ceaseless and irrevocable social and economic progress through images of churning factories and happy, exultant workers.” I have long pondered the boundless evil of […]

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Water Causes Cancer And Other Truths

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Time Magazine has already called it “The Decade From Hell.” (Couldn’t have been worse than the 1940’s?! Could it? I mean the 40’s had Hitler AND Stalin.) And if you have survived the “aughts” reasonably intact as we caterwaul our way into 2010 with a health care package being vigorously stripped of all its progressive […]

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