Vermin on the Mount
Los Angeles readers, be sure to check out the latest Vermin reading, which celebrates the release of OpiumMagazine‘s first print issue. Join Jim Ruland and his cohorts tomorrow night at the Mountain bar in Chinatown.
Los Angeles readers, be sure to check out the latest Vermin reading, which celebrates the release of OpiumMagazine‘s first print issue. Join Jim Ruland and his cohorts tomorrow night at the Mountain bar in Chinatown.
William Deresiewicz reviews Zadie Smith’s On Beauty for The Nation, and calls for more restraint. Also in the magazine, Lee Siegel writes, “It has almost become a sadness to review a novel by Rushdie,” but he proceeds to do so anyway.
Monica Ali’s Brick Lane and Leila Aboulela’s Minaret fall under “Muslim immigrant chick-lit“? And here I was under the impression that those books were just good old literary fiction.
Over at the Morning News, Robert Birnbaum interviews George Saunders about his latest, the novella The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil.
The Lit Blog Co-Op has made its fall selection: Steve Stern’s The Angel of Forgetfulness. The book was nominated by Daniel Green of the Reading Experience, and he explains his choice here. You can join the discussion of the book by posting comments.
Over the next few days, each of the other nominated titles will be unveiled. And each will be discussed in a week-long conversation between bloggers. Tune in!
As has been mentioned elsewhere, Nabokov’s Lolita turns fifty this week. NPR’s Day to Day had a special segment about it and the program’s page has several worthwhile features. You can listen to Vladimir Nabokov reading the poem from the book to a live audience in 1964. (I am particularly fond of the rolling r‘s in his otherwise perfect French on a couple of the lines.) You can watch the scene in which Humbert Humbert first meets Lolita in Kubrick’s film version. And, lastly, prepare yourself to be devastated by the voice of Jeremy Irons as he reads the novel’s incredible opening.