Round-Up: Man Booker Longlist, Obama’s Intro, and International Women’s Day
From the first ever longlist for the Man Booker International Prize to reading lists inspired by International Women’s Day, here’s last week’s literary news:
Barack Obama
On Crafting Presidential Narratives
Martin O’Malley’s failed presidential bid is a novel that writes itself, and I’d write it tomorrow if my plot wouldn’t risk turning into fan fiction. A handsome, two-term governor gets bested by a woman and a socialist and suspends his campaign after receiving 0.5% of the vote in the Iowa Caucus. I doubt O’Malley’s story…
Rereading GILEAD on the Eve of the Iowa Caucus
Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead became my favorite novel a decade ago. I read the first half the book in Iowa City and the second half the book in Wichita, Kansas, which undoubtedly brought the narrator’s prairie landscape to life. I lived the book in solitude, existing with Reverend John Ames on the steps of Iowa City’s…