Code Name: ARGO

Iquitarod


I follow this blog pretty religiously. This one was too good not to post.

“Do we need our presidential invocation to be given by a bigmouth clerical businessman who is, furthermore, a religious sectarian?”

Still more reasons to boot Rick Warren from the inauguration. – By Christopher Hitchens – Slate Magazine

My recent interview with Lydia Millet is in the January Boldtype, and has been featured in Flavorpill as well. Good thing, because Millet’s new book, How the Dead Dream, is superb, squaring its shoulders against “big issues” with pathos, humor, and insight.Here’s Millet on the impetus to write the book:

So much of what’s foretold now by scientists, in terms of, say, extinction and climate change, comes at us like a wall of despair. We stand there facing the wall with nothing to do but throw up our hands. I wanted the trajectory of this character’s story, T.’s story, to evoke a less despairing response that has to do with the richness and excitement of animal life—the wild, imaginative heritage that animals have given to culture and art and religion; the recognition that the future of human civilization is deeply entwined with the future of species that are swiftly vanishing. 

Read the interview.

Discounted books in Switzerland threaten Germany’s hallowed book culture, which has long maintained strict price controls. Here’s Elizabeth Ruge, head of the Berlin Verlag publishing house, taking the long view on building a back catalogue:

‘Three-quarters of our list will never make money, but it’s important to publish those books because we believe in them and because they create an atmosphere of quality,’ she said. ‘People then trust us when we say a book is good.’

Read it here

Though I haven’t been writing on the blog, I have been writing. Here’s another review for Boldtype, this time of Swiss writer Robert Walser’s The Assistant.

My book review of Douglas Wolk’s Reading Comics appears in this month’s Boldtype, Flavorpill’s literary publication.

For all the readers out there, I heartily admonish you to subscribe.