Random Fact of the Day

Ernest Hemingway’s youngest child was a transsexual alcoholic doctor and father of eight children.

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How the Nobel Committee Made Me a Nationalist

America, Fuck Yeah.

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In Praise of American Literary Insularity

Matt Zeitlin on the richness of American literature.

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Wherein I Was in the Same Room as Paul Auster

Tonight I was a literary fanboy. I trekked down to the Barnes & Noble at Union Square and returned with this:

Paul Auster read a few sporadic selections from his new book, Man in the Dark, to a pretty packed crowd. I won’t say much about it, except to note that the way he chose what [...]

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Hip Hop and the Conservative

Mark Gauvreau Judge, in a review of John McWhorter’s new book about hip hop, writes:
A great jazz critic once referred to the great black musical traditions as giving the audience the ability “to deal with adversity with grace.” Rap teaches the very opposite, to deal with adversity with resentment, misogyny, and street theater left over [...]

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Link of the Day

Why does a used copy of Rick Perlstein’s Before the Storm cost $131.09? The economics of online book retailers and recently out of print books…

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