Speaking for You: the Vision of Ralph Ellison: The Vision of Ralph Ellison / Ed. by Kimberly W. Benston.
Bookninja (Free subscription) | yesterday
It’s really a great thing that Dimitri decided to honor his relative with this shoddily compiled gathering of notes. What a way to ensure the health of a reputation: hang the dirty underwear in the window to make a profit. Let’s come clean—$35 is at stake, after all. Vladimir Nabokov’s posthumously published The Original of Laura [...]
A 1,000 Voices (Free subscription) | 24/11/2009
This is me: A not-so-happy place. Only because I cannot differentiate between music and life — there is strife. I am pulled in wholeheartedly whether you and I like it or not. A banjo. A fiddle. A sad ole gospel. I have never seen the light, though I sing it with all my might. Am I born to die? The appalachian gospel asks and my inquiring [...]
The Daily Beast (Free subscription) | 23/11/2009
All the fuss about the publication of Vladimir Nabokov's last "novel" was pointless. The book is just a collection of notes that's been cleverly marketed, says Nathaniel Rich. Let's come clean-$35 is at stake, after all. Vladimir Nabokov's...
Bibliobibuli (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
The National Book Award winners were announced November 18 during a ceremony in New York City. These are probably the major US awards after the Pulitzer Prize, and there are several categories. The prize for fiction went to Irish author Colum McCann for Let the Great World Spin , which is based on life in New York City in the 1970s. The piece was described as an "indelibly hallucinatory portrait...
Jacket Copy (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
The National Book Award for Fiction went to Colum McCann for his novel "Let the Great World Spin," a story of New York in 1974 that doubles as an allegory of 9/11. It was the final award at the black-tie...
Isak (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
No surprise here: The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor won the Best of the National Book Awards Fiction tonight, in a public vote that received more than 10,000 responses in the final stretch. Find my NBA review of the book here, and the nascence of the mild (and, it seems, totally unnecessary) campaign for its win here. O'Connor's book was chosen by readers over the other finalists: Invisible...
Pearlblossom Highway (Free subscription) | 18/11/2009
The Invisible Man Originally uploaded by Michael_Kelleher Ellison, Ralph Invisible Man I think I bought this in the mid-nineties at East Village Books, which, I was happy to see on my last trip to the city, still exists. I paid 2.75 for it. I started off thinking I was going to write about my imagination of Harlem, but I keep thinking about how the issue of race played out in my childhood in the DC...
A 1,000 Voices (Free subscription) | 13/11/2009
i may be a little bipolar passive aggressive in my nature the way i reel in and cast away perhaps completely tossed aside with you though i find more than balance some strange spring solstice that sets all right within my world so much so that family are tolerable friends are more than bearable employees need not feel the wrath of sudden mood swings swaying between [...]
Just One More Page... (Free subscription) | 08/11/2009
This month Wendy supplied us with a list of first lines and asks which books we’ve read and which would make it to our tbr list on the basis of the first line. Bold = the books I’ve read Pink = tbr pile 1. Call me Ishmael. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick 2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Jane Austen, Pride...
School Essays (Free subscription) | 02/11/2009
Roaring Twenties was a significant period for various spheres of life in the United States. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement during that period, which still has its impact on literature and art. You are about to start writing an essay on the Harlem Renaissance. Do not worry if you [...]
Rafe McGregor (Free subscription) | 02/11/2009
It's been some time since my last McConfidential, so I'm very pleased to be back with one of my favourite hardboiled detective story authors, Sean Chercover . The natural successor to Chandler, Parker, and Crais, in my humble opinion... Rafe: Tell me a bit about your latest novel or current series. Sean: Trigger City is the second book about Chicago investigative reporter-turned PI Ray Dudgeon, who...
3:AM Magazine (Free subscription) | 29/10/2009
Charges of Iceberg Slim's misogyny may well stick, but he wrote from the inside, documented people who snorted cocaine and stuck needles in their arms, people who sold their bodies, who wore expensive clothes, who beat women with coathangers. As Irvine Welsh says, "one of his most endearing features was that Iceberg Slim never sought any insincere exoneration for the life he led…Iceberg...
Jacket Copy (Free subscription) | 24/10/2009
The Massachusetts-based Small Beer Press has announced that its 2010 planner for writers is coming. The digital version is available now, and those who want to preview the calendar can peek at the month of March. I know some writers...
News: Opinion -- KansasCity.com (Free subscription) | 17/10/2009
By Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist Art often articulates complicated subjects that people either avoid or struggle to describe. The “Black Is, Black Ain’t” art exhibit at the H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute illustrated that well. The title came from a line in Ralph Ellison’s book, “Invisible Man.”...
orgtheory.net (Free subscription) | 08/10/2009
As a first-year assistant professor, I decided to skimp a little on the creativity in terms of syllabus development. But I’ve been toying with the idea of incorporating fiction in my later courses. Why? Well, I think undergrads in particular like a little break from academic texts. I also think that having them engage with [...]
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