Category: words

Among the 17 titles in contention for this year’s Prix Renaudot is Marco Koskas’ Bande de Français, which was self-published on Amazon’s CreateSpace platform. According to the Syndicat de la librairie française, which represents French booksellers, the jury have put them in an impossible position.

In some vague, indescribable way, we feel something when we see the first group of words that we may not with regards to the second. Is it just cultural, poetic, or linguistic prejudice that makes us like a some words, and not others? Or is there some other story behind why some words seem to alienate us?

“A couple of months ago, we reached out to dozens of critics and authors — well-established voices (Michiko Kakutani, Luc Sante), more radical thinkers (Eileen Myles), younger reviewers for outlets like n+1, and some of our best-read contributors, too. We asked each of them to name several books that belong among the most important 100 works of fiction, memoir, poetry, and essays since 2000 and tallied the results. The purpose was not to build a fixed library but to take a blurry selfie of a cultural moment.”

The Japanese novelist was, along with Neil Gaiman, Maryse Condé and Kim Thúy, one of four finalists for the New Academy Prize, organized in Sweden after the scandal-plagued Swedish Academy postponed this year’s Nobel for literature. But Murakami, often mentioned as a contender for the Nobel itself, withdrew from consideration, saying, according to organizers, that “his preference is to concentrate on his writing, away from media attention.”

I live with a beginner’s mind. I didn’t realize two weeks ago I was going to buy Time. (Mr. Benioff texts a screenshot of a quote from the Zen master Suzuki: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.”) My power was that I didn’t really want to do anything but I was open to all possibilities.

“We were looking for books that were written in elevated, idiosyncratic, original prose that exhibited an exquisite command of the art of language, and unparalleled mastery of structure and storytelling,” the jury said in a statement. “We argued viciously over books, expounding on their merits. But when the battle was over, what remained left us in awe.”

Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections is planning to ban free book donations to inmates by mail, claiming that this is a “primary avenue for drugs” to enter prisons. But the move coincides with a renewed push to get prisoners buying into a pricey prison eBook system that offers low-end tablets for $150 and eBooks no cheaper than $3 a read.

Historian Jill Lepore on writing a history of the entire country in less than 1000 pages, but still having to change the ending thanks to the presidential election of 2016: “It was just a watershed political moment. To not adjust to end there just seemed wrong, like a dereliction of duty as a historian.”

It’s writing craft, of course – and making sure to have two points of view. Author Zoje Stage: “A lot of the tension in the book comes from the dual perspective of seeing how these two characters interpret the same event differently, which makes people question if one of them is more right than the other.” And then there’s the “European cinema” house setting …

Actually, not a list of lists, but some questions and thoughts: “Is there such a thing as a happy list in literature? The blithe verbal sum of possessions, achievements or experiences? Isn’t the very act of setting such things down evidence of some vexation, a clue that something is missing? The collector’s catalogue, the merchant’s tally, the seducer’s black book: they are all examples of compensating control. Compensation for what? For a scouring anxiety, or cumbrous melancholy?”