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From the Shanghai Children’s Book Fair to the closing of the Barnes & Noble in the Bronx, here are last week’s biggest literary headlines: The Shanghai Children’s Book Fair (CCBF) will take place November 18-20 at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition Center. The CCBF is expecting more than 10,000 trade visitors, which is a 30% increase compared…
Sinking down the basement steps of the Palais Porte Dorée in Paris is to find it much as it was in its inaugural year. The hulking Art Deco palace was a centerpiece of the 1931 Colonial Exposition—a World’s Fair-type undertaking meant to reinvest French citizens of the interwar period in the “civilizing mission” of their brutal land-people-and-resources grab across Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Asia, and Pacifica.
If, while watching a movie with your spouse, you like to whisper “that didn’t happen in the book” (and who doesn’t?), then you’ll be sorely disappointed by a screening of No Country for Old Men. Virtually every scene and every line of dialogue in the Coen brothers’ Academy Award-winning film is lifted straight from Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel of the same name.
A year ago, I first read Bryan Stevenson’s book Just Mercy, a compelling memoir about his work as an attorney and a convincing indictment of the injustices of our current legal system. Now, I have the opportunity to accompany death row exoneree Anthony Ray Hinton, who was defended by Stevenson, to a nearby federal prison where he speaks to inmates.
In the ruins of Moria, at a fork in the mountain tunnels, Gandalf explains to Frodo how the burden of carrying the ring to Mordor was passed to him. The word he uses? “Encouraging.” Tough to swallow, but Frodo learns if it weren’t for him, there would be no one else, that he therefore must possess some quality otherwise unattained or lost by all else, and if that quality does not make him qualified for the mission, then certainly no one else is or will be.
Shira Dentz is the author of three books, black seeds on a white dish, door of thin skins, and how do i net thee (forthcoming), and two chapbooks, Leaf Weather and FLOUNDERS, newly available from Essay Press. Dentz is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets’ Prize, the Poetry Society of America’s Lyric Poem and Cecil Hemley Memorial Awards, Electronic Poetry Review’s Discovery Award, and Painted Bride Quarterly’s Poetry Prize.
I conducted short interviews with a group of hotshot poets, scholars, and critics to help out. I invited them to nominate an American poem they think is underrated—a poem they wish more people loved and taught, a poem that might be for many an unknown unknown.
Grace Paley’s work has influenced many writers, both her contemporaries and those who followed. Amy Hempel has spoken often about Paley’s imprint on her work. For Hempel’s story “Today Will Be a Quiet Day,” Hempel has identified one Paley story as being particularly important.
By anchoring his collection around Aaron Kleinhardt, Wheeler creates subtle connections. The stories feel linked in an understated but solid way, creating a canvas with more depth than any one short story alone could give. Wheeler’s characters are people we know.
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