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Arts
Kate Zambreno Takes Issue With What Counts as ‘Literature’
What books are on your night stand? A bit of a brag, but I just got the Annie Ernaux box set from Seven Stories. I’m teaching all 13 books for a graduate seminar on Ernaux this semester, and there were a few I didn’t have. It’s still wrapped in ...
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Arts
‘Huck Finn’ Is a Masterpiece. This Retelling Just Might Be, Too.
Percival Everett’s new novel amends Mark Twain’s classic tale with the enslaved sidekick, Jim, at its center.
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Arts
A Shape-Shifting Novel About the Power of Stories
In Helen Oyeyemi’s “Parasol Against the Axe,” a woman’s trip to Prague becomes a meta-narrative about connection with art, people and more.
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Arts
Kate DiCamillo Says ‘Paying Attention Is a Way to Love the World’
What books are on your night stand? On the literal night stand, the pile includes Alice McDermott’s “The Ninth Hour” (I loved last fall’s “Absolution” so much that I went searching for every McDermott I had missed); “The Best American Short Stories ...
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Arts
Brontez Purnell Insists on Phoning Writers He Admires
Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how). It could only be in fantasy scenarios. Like everyone else, my attention span is garbage. And long-form reading? OMG — it takes a MUSCLE these days! I don’t trust people who say they ...
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World
I Read These Books So That You Don’t Have To
President Biden had a far better comeback at his disposal last week when he took offense at a special counsel report that suggested he didn’t remember which year his son Beau died. He’d already delivered that alternative response in “Promise Me, Dad ...
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Arts
This Novel Is So Bonkers, It Needs Three Narrators
“Same Bed Different Dreams,” Ed Park’s second novel, is a heady mix of true history and high-flying fiction.
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World
If You Know How to Read It, Washington Is an Open Book
President Biden had a far better comeback at his disposal last week when he took offense at a special counsel report that suggested he didn’t remember which year his son Beau died. He’d already delivered that alternative response in “Promise Me, Dad ...
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Arts
Waiting in the Snow for a Phone Call, Mixing Memory and Desire
Cynthia Zarin’s first novel, “Inverno,” is a tale of a woman’s incurable longing and haunted past.
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Arts
Jill McCorkle Is Getting Over Her ‘Henry James Phobia’
What books are on your night stand? “The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of the Bondwoman’s Narrative,” by Gregg Hecimovich; “The Consequences,” stories by Manuel Muñoz; Tom Mustill’s “How to Speak Whale”; “Absolute Animal” by Rachel ...
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