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☆ ‘Past Lives’: Celine Song and the cast on love, loss and ‘inyeon’
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-22 | by ( Tom Page | Thomas Page | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

“Past Lives,” by Korean Canadian writer and director Celine Song, is broadly autobiographical. Before “Past Lives,” Song wrote the stage play “Endlings,” which debuted in 2019 at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with its subsequent New York run cut short by the Covid-19 pandemic. Celine Song directs Greta Lee on location during the production of "Past Lives." “Past Lives” eschews such visual literalism, using its romantic totems Hae Sung and Arthur instead. Courtesy A24In “Past Lives,” the notion of “inyeon” permeates the narrative.

Persons: Greta Lee isn’t, John Magaro, Teo Yoo, “ John, ” Lee deadpanned, Magaro, Lee, ”, –, Celine Song, Nora, Arthur, Hae Sung, ” Song, “, Greta Lee, Jon Pack, “ That’s, “ I’m, Hae, ” Lee, Netflix’s, Oscar, Evelyn, Michelle Yeoh, Arthur poignantly, ” Hae Sung, Arthur wryly, White, ” –, it’s Organizations: CNN, “, American, Theater, Apple, Sundance, US Locations: United States, American, Canadian, Korea, Canada, New York City, New York, Cambridge , Massachusetts, Seoul, Greta, Los Angeles, Korean, South Korea, China, Berlin

☆ Bookforum Is Returning, Months After Its Closure Was Mourned in the Literary World
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-22 | by ( Kate Dwyer | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Bookforum, a literary criticism magazine that closed in December to great uproar in the literary world, will be back in print in August with a new publishing partner: The Nation. Bookforum’s relaunch, announced on Thursday, marks a return to form, said Bhaskar Sunkara, president of The Nation, who initiated talks in the spring. Bookforum will remain a quarterly print publication with the same branding and aesthetic, helmed by the staff at the time of its closure, he added. “The economics of a relaunch seemed feasible, especially if it was supported by the infrastructure of an existing publication.”The Bookforum team said they are confident that The Nation is the right partner. “Bhaskar himself has worked on a number of magazines, and The Nation has been around since 1865.”

Persons: Bhaskar Sunkara, “, ”, Sunkara, ” Michael Miller, “ Bhaskar Organizations: The, Jacobin

☆ Mailbag: Does Trump Represent Half the Country?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-21 | by ( Nate Cohn | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

I suppose it must be good news for the Nats at some level, but the Mets weren’t really their problem. Books by candidatesI previously mentioned that I don’t read books by aspiring presidential candidates. Of course, someone is unlikely to read a book by a candidate unless they are somewhat interested in that person. — Angie BoyterWhen I wrote that I don’t read a presidential candidate’s book, I was mainly thinking about the genre of political books written by someone just about to run for president. They largely go unread, but they offer an excuse for TV producers to book a presidential hopeful on their shows.

Persons: Haley, Nikki Haley — David Newberger, Tim Scott, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis isn’t, Asa, Asa Hutchinson’s, — Merideth Tomlinson, I’m, Barack Obama, ” …, Angie Boyter, Obama’s, ”, ” —, Obama, Vance’s Organizations: Mets, Washington Nationals Locations: Arkansas

☆ Everyone Likes Reading. Why Are We So Afraid of It?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-21 | by ( A.O. Scott | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Among Douglass’s most powerful and painful revelations is that, on the subject of reading, his master was right. Substitute “reading” for “freedom” in that last sentence and the meaning stays the same. Reading liberates and torments us, enlightens and bewilders us, makes and unmakes our social and solitary selves. The methods of reading instruction associated with Columbia University’s Teachers College were in full bloom there. The rooms were furnished with well-stocked, low-slung bookshelves and carpeted risers where young readers could curl up with “just-right books,” selections matched to their interests and levels of proficiency.

Persons: Frederick, ”, Hugh, Mandeville, Prometheus, “ Organizations: Reading, Columbia University’s Teachers College Locations: Brooklyn

☆ New York Times Columnists on Culture in America - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Some pieces of culture — deliberately or not — are so revealing, capture so much of a country’s essence that they can practically be read as foundational texts. We asked our columnists to pick the one piece of culture that, to them, best explains America. They came back with a wide range of answers — from a 1979 Sugarhill Gang song to a literary classic. Each pick speaks to a different vision of this country and what it stands for, some more hopeful than others. But they all tell us something about the archetypes we root for, the mythologies we cling to and the ideals we clash over and share.

Persons: — Locations: Independence

☆ Paul-Henri Nargeolet Has Made More Than 35 Titanic Site Trips
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( Aurelien Breeden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French maritime expert who has been on over 35 dives to the Titanic wreck site, is one of the five people aboard the submersible that has been missing since Sunday, according to his literary representative, Mathieu Johann. Mr. Nargeolet, 77, is the director of underwater research for RMS Titanic, Inc., an American company that owns the salvage rights to the famous wreck and displays many of the artifacts at Titanic exhibitions. The dozens of dives Mr. Nargeolet has made to the wreck site include previous OceanGate expeditions on the Titan, the missing submersible. Mr. Nargeolet’s company, RMS Titanic, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Sunday, in a statement on Twitter, it expressed “heartfelt support to the Boston Coast Guard during their search and rescue mission” but made no mention of Mr. Nargeolet.

Persons: Paul, Henri Nargeolet, Mathieu Johann, Mr, Nargeolet Organizations: Twitter, Boston Coast Guard Locations: American

☆ Cormac McCarthy’s Remarkable Career Could Never Be Reproduced Today - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-19 | by ( Dan Sinykin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

The fact that the world is now celebrating the arc of Mr. McCarthy’s monumental career is a testament to the novelist’s undeniable talent. But it’s also due to his timely recognition that, without his protector, Mr. Erskine, and the vanished world of publishing that Mr. Erskine represented, he would need to change the way his books were published. In the 1960s, large corporations began acquiring publishing houses, consolidating the industry into fewer and fewer conglomerates. Literary agents became essential intermediaries, as publishing houses no longer riffled through submissions to find emerging talents. A poorly typed manuscript like Mr. McCarthy’s debut would struggle to make it into, let alone be rescued from, a slush pile.

Persons: it’s, Erskine, McCarthy’s, Robert Bernstein, Newhouse, Alberto Vitale, who’d, Mr, Vitale, ”, André Schiffrin, “, McCarthy, Lynn Nesbit, Robert Caro, Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, Tom Wolfe, “ I’ve, ” Mr, you’re, Amanda “ Binky, Urban, Sonny Mehta, Robert Gottlieb, MacArthur, who’s Organizations: RCA, S.I, Mr, Olivetti, Fiat, Random, Knopf, The New York Times

☆ Samantha Irby Says It’s OK to Hate Your Body
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-18 | by ( David Marchese | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +7 min

Talk Samantha Irby Says It’s OK to Hate Your BodyAs far as descriptions of writers go, “humorist” has an old-fashioned, almost quaint ring to it, the literary equivalent of haberdasher or lamplighter. Maybe I was born too early to get on the “I don’t give a [expletive] if you see my legs” thing. I don’t know if this is controversial, but I don’t miss my parents. But I don’t know. I think I’m off the hook a little because my main target is myself, but the joke sensitivity is wild to me.

Persons: Samantha Irby, ”, “, operatically, vivacity, Irby, ” Irby, I’ve, they’re, she’s, Cynthia Nixon, Kevin Yatarola, don’t, Nicole Ari Parker, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, Karen Pittman, ” Craig Blankenhorn, Max, Brown, Paul Mooney, Richard Pryor, I’m, David, David Marchese, Emma Chamberlain, Walter Mosley Organizations: ”, YouTube, Cal Newport Locations: ”, New York, America

☆ My final, unexpected conversation with Cormac McCarthy
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-18 | by ( David Kushner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

My last conversation with Cormac McCarthy, the acclaimed and elusive novelist who died last week at 89, came as unexpectedly as the first. "I thought you said Cormac McCarthy edited your book on theoretical physics?" "I got the manuscript back in the mail, and it was marked up on every page," Randall told me. By the time I interviewed Randall, Cormac was spending his days at the Santa Fe Institute, a theoretical-research institute in the piñon foothills of New Mexico. "Don't do this to yourself," McCarthy told the guy, before shutting the door in his face.

Persons: Cormac McCarthy, McCarthy, —, Belying, Cormac, Lisa Randall, Randall, Gil, Jon, MacArthur, Murray Gell, Mann, it's, Einstein, they're, Doug Erwin, David Krakauer, David, Stella Maris, I'd, He'd, David Kushner Organizations: Wired, Stone, Harvard, drifters, Santa Fe Institute, Atari Locations: backwoods Florida, piñon, New Mexico, Texas, Tennessee, El Paso, Rolling Stone, SFI

☆ The Indictment Can Only Hurt Trump
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Peggy Noonan | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Peggy Noonan is an opinion columnist at the Wall Street Journal where her column, "Declarations," has run since 2000. She has been a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, and has taught in the history department at Yale University. Before entering the Reagan White House, Noonan was a producer and writer at CBS News in New York, and an adjunct professor of Journalism at New York University. She was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up there, in Massapequa Park, Long Island, and in Rutherford, New Jersey. In November, 2016 she was named one of the city's Literary Lions by the New York Public Library.

Persons: Peggy Noonan, ”, ” Noonan, Ronald Reagan, Noonan Organizations: Wall, Journal, NBC News, The, Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, Yale University, Reagan White House, CBS News, Journalism, New York University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Lions, New York Public Library Locations: New York, Brooklyn , New York, Massapequa Park, Long, Rutherford , New Jersey, Rutherford, New York City

☆ Taking a Late-in-Life Victory Lap, Thanks to His Novel’s ‘Lunatic Energy’
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Alexandra Alter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Robert Plunket was living in a trailer park in Englewood, Fla., with his pug, Meatball, when an email interrupted his life of quiet retirement. “I did feel like an obscure has-been,” Plunket said, “because that’s what I was, technically.”Now, Plunket is relishing his new status as a former has-been. This month, the independent publisher New Directions reissued his novel, “My Search for Warren Harding,” a biting comedy about a scholar who goes to extreme, morally questionable lengths to access letters Warren Harding sent to his mistress. What’s even more unusual about Plunket, and his unlikely return, is how stealthily influential his fiction has been over the decades. His admirers include writers like the novelist Ann Beattie and the journalist Frank Rich, comedians like Amy Sedaris and Larry David.

Persons: Robert Plunket, Meatball, Plunket, ” Plunket, Warren Harding, ”, Danzy Senna, Ann Beattie, Frank Rich, Amy Sedaris, Larry David, Madonna, Ian Organizations: New Locations: Englewood, Fla, New York

☆ These TikToks say Spanglish is a superpower
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Catherine E. Shoichet | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

“I used to be the teacher that said to kids, ‘That’s not the way that you say it.’ No se dice así. “Speaking Spanglish is a superpower,” Medina says. Why he sees Spanglish as a strengthMedina says there are three ways Spanglish is spoken:• Alternating between English and Spanish in a sentence. Another expert calls Spanglish ‘the fastest growing hybrid language in the world’Medina isn’t the only expert making a case for Spanglish. “It’s very controversial,” Stavans says, noting that his work on Spanglish has drawn opposition from some who think its use undermines English and Spanish.

Persons: José Medina, Medina, ‘ That’s, ” Medina, he’d, he’s, hasn’t, ”, Spanglish, it’s, José, “, ’ ” Medina, Ilan Stavans, Stavans, ” Stavans, that’s, wasn’t, –, Joe, he’ll, didn’t, they’ve, He’s, ” Susana Frescas, she’s, “ It’s, It’s Organizations: CNN, Spanglish, José Medina Educational Solutions, Amherst College, San Elizario Independent, District, City University of New, Texas Association for Bilingual Education Locations: Texas, Spanglish, José Medina, Mexico, United States, Spain, El Paso , Texas, “, José, Medina, El Paso, City University of New York, Dallas , Texas, San Elizario

☆ Tottori Sand Dunes: Japan’s disappearing desert
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( Claire Hannum | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

But these are the Tottori Sand Dunes, wedged along the coast of Japan’s sparsely populated San’in region, the country’s very own slice of desert. A dwindling treasureThe Tottori dunes are located on the western coast of Honshu, Japan’s largest and most populous island. The Tottori Sand Dunes are just 12% of the size that they were 100 years ago. “The environmental conditions of the Tottori Sand Dunes are different from those of arid lands because of its humid climate,” Nagamatsu says. “But Tottori University is promoting arid land research using the ‘sand’ conditions of the Tottori Sand Dunes and experimental facilities.”Down the road from the research center, tourists are experiencing an otherworldly adventure in the sand.

Persons: you’d, They’ve, Takeo Arishima, ”, Dai Nagamatsu, Akira Miyawaki, — Buddhika, Nagamatsu, shiba, sandboarders, Anya Jarilla, “, it’s, amulapo, Kengo Kuma Organizations: Japan CNN, Sand Museum, Tottori University’s Faculty of Agriculture, Local, Brazilian Amazon ., Research Center, ” Staff, Associates Locations: Tottori Prefecture, Japan, Tottori, Honshu, Japan’s, Osaka, Hiroshima, Chūgoku, Sendai, Tottori University’s, Tottori City, Brazilian, Paragliders, Tottori Sand, Tokyo, ”

☆ Riding Into a Bloodred Sunset
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( A.O. Scott | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

A page of Cormac McCarthy might sometimes be taken for poetry or scripture: the lean lines; the sparse punctuation; the jagged right-hand margin. They must have flown as they were riding up. If they’s a dead cow in the pasture will the rest of the cattle stay there? McCarthy, like every writer, belonged to his time, even as, perhaps more intently than most writers, he labored to create work that would outlast it. Not that they remotely resemble one another: Each represents a singular sensibility and an original voice, a personality on the page that is unmistakable and inimitable.

Persons: Cormac McCarthy, “, ”, McCarthy, Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike, Sade, Updike, Toni Morrison, Susan Sontag, Philip Roth, Joan Didion, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, Oates Organizations: The New York Locations: The, Southwestern

☆ Read Your Way Through the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Luis Alberto Urrea | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

I was born in Tijuana and spent much of my boyhood in a neighborhood — “colonia,” in TJ-speak — called Independencia. The borderlands are the most interesting book in the world, being rewritten every day. A city so defamed, a city so generous.” I dare say most people don’t think of any border city, on either side of the wall, as generous. My favorite border pop song is by Nortec Collective (more on them below), and it’s called “Tijuana Makes Me Happy.” Yeah — the border makes me happy. But I do not believe that immigration stories are a subset of the literature of the borderlands: Though there is some cross-pollination, I believe immigration literature is a genre of its own, deserving of its own spotlight.

Persons: Gabriel García Márquez, narco, Jaime Cháidez Bonilla, ”, it’s Organizations: ersatz, Twitter, Nortec Locations: Tijuana, ”, TJ, Independencia, Mexican

☆ Robert Gottlieb, Eminent Editor From le Carré to Clinton, Dies at 92
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Robert D. Mcfadden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Unlike his revered and formal predecessor, who wore jackets and ties, saw people by appointment and was addressed as “Mr. Easing the apprehensions of many New Yorker aficionados, he made few and mostly minor changes over five years. New critics were hired, and Talk of the Town commentaries were opened to more writers and were no longer written anonymously. In 1992, Tina Brown, the British editor of Vanity Fair, replaced Mr. Gottlieb in an amicable transition and introduced splashy changes. “I can write perfectly well — anybody who’s educated can write perfectly well.

Persons: Mr, Shawn, ” Mr, Gottlieb, “, ”, Raymond Bonner, Judith Thurman, Diane Ackerman, Robert Stone, Richard Ford, Tina Brown, Eustace Tilley Organizations: Yorker, Knopf, The New York Observer Locations: Central, British

☆ Cormac McCarthy, Pulitzer-winning novelist known for apocalyptic Westerns, dies at 89
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Daniel Arkin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 16: Writer Cormac McCarthy attends the premiere of "The Road" at Clearview Chelsea Cinemas on November 16, 2009 in New York City. McCarthy's death was announced in a statement by his publisher, Penguin Random House. "Cormac McCarthy changed the course of literature," Nihar Malaviya, the CEO of Penguin Random House, said in a statement. Two novels published in the 2000s — "No Country for Old Men" and "The Road" — drew wide acclaim and found favor in Hollywood. McCarthy published his final two novels in 2022: "The Passenger" and "Stella Maris," interconnected narratives that grappled with morality, science and faith.

Persons: Cormac McCarthy, Jim Spellman, WireImage, Pulitzer, John McCarthy —, McCarthy, Olivetti Underwood, Malaviya, James Wood, King James Bible, Melville, Conrad, Faulkner, Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr, Albert Erskine, William Faulkner, James Joyce, —, Joel, Ethan Coen, Viggo Mortensen, Stella Maris Organizations: Chelsea Cinemas, Penguin Random, Yorker, The New York Times, University of Tennessee, Random, Penguin Locations: New York City, Santa Fe , New Mexico, American, Providence , Rhode Island, Knoxville , Tennessee, Hollywood

☆ Cormac McCarthy, Novelist of a Darker America, Is Dead at 89
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Dwight Garner | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Knopf, his publisher, said in a statement that this son, John, had confirmed the death. Mr. McCarthy’s fiction took a dark view of the human condition and was often macabre. He decorated his novels with scalpings, beheadings, arson, rape, incest, necrophilia and cannibalism. “There’s no such thing as life without bloodshed,” he told The New York Times magazine in 1992 in a rare interview. While not quite as reclusive as Thomas Pynchon, Mr. McCarthy gave no readings and no blurbs for the jackets of other writers’ books.

Persons: Cormac McCarthy, grotesques, ”, Knopf, John, scalpings, “, Thomas Pynchon, McCarthy Organizations: New York Times Locations: American, Santa Fe

☆ In Love, on the Road and Undead
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Dwight Garner | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But it doesn’t say what should happen if the character dies and comes back to life as a tree — or at least a treelike variety of zombie. Then the love of his life, an ex-girlfriend named Lily, dies by suicide. But lo, somehow, here she is after her burial, undead, with dirt in her mouth and worms wriggling on her neck. Finn is still in love with Lily. Lily is still in love with Finn.

Persons: Lorrie Moore There’s, Vladimir Nabokov, Lorrie Moore’s fluky, Finn, Finn’s, Lily Organizations: IF Locations: Bronx

☆ Don’t Count a Third Party Out in 2024
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Peggy Noonan | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

☆ Why Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo is mentoring Ghanaian writer Ayesha Harruna Attah
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Rochelle Beighton | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Attah said that being selected personally by Evaristo “is an honor of a lifetime.”“I was overjoyed because I love Bernardine’s boldness as a writer. In 2012, she launched the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, now renamed the Evaristo African Poetry Prize, with the aim of providing a platform for emerging poets from Africa and the diaspora. For Evaristo, mentorship is about more than just refining writing skills. Both Evaristo and Attah share a commitment to challenging misconceptions and stereotypes surrounding Africa and its people through their work. “People have said to me, “Isn’t writing about Africa or Black people limiting?” Evaristo said.

Persons: Bernardine Evaristo, Evaristo, Booker, Ayesha Harruna Attah, “, ” Evaristo, Attah, Evaristo “, ”, ” Attah, Don’t, ’, ‘, ” MARTIN BOURKE, “ We’ve Organizations: CNN, Protégé Arts Initiative, Arts, Brunel University London, Brunel International Locations: Africa, Europe, America, Athens, Greece, Senegal, Nigerian, London, New York, Trinidad, Ghana, England, White

☆ Upstart News Site Has Youth on Its Side, and Albany in Its Sights
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Ginia Bellafante | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Out of these and other revelations came the notion for New York Focus, a nonprofit news site. But it would distinguish itself by concentrating on the way that power is exercised in Albany and how it filters down and affects almost everything. The order would have also prevented Mr. Lennon and writers like him from getting paid. A day after the New York Focus piece appeared, the corrections department rescinded the directive. In November New York Focus, with the Intercept as a partner, published the results of a yearlong investigation into allegations of physical and sexual abuse at Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Ulster County.

Persons: Mehta’s, Sam Mellins, Lee Harris, John J, Lennon, sodomizing Organizations: York, state’s Department of Corrections, Community Supervision, Sullivan Correctional, New York, New York Times Magazine, New, PEN America, Shawangunk Locations: City, Hell, New York City, Albany, Chicago, York, New York, Ulster County

☆ Sun, Sea and Books Make This Festival an Enticing Destination
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Anderson Tepper | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The sun is shining, the waves are lapping against the shore, and the crowds are filing into a giant tent for the first sessions of the day at the Calabash International Literary Festival, on Jamaica’s low-key southern coast. Private tents dot the beach behind the stage, where some festivalgoers have slept. Jamaica’s poet laureate, Olive Senior, stops to embrace old friends at the entrance to the grounds, making plans to catch up soon. Meanwhile, busloads arrive from the capital and other points across the island. By 10 a.m. more than a thousand people have filled the seats, gazing out at what might be the world’s most breathtaking stage, framed by ocean and blue sky.

Persons: Olive, busloads, Margaret Busby, ”, Linton Kwesi Johnson Organizations: Olive Senior Locations: British, Africa

☆ In Richard Ford’s New Novel, One More Trip for Old Times’ Sake
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Dwight Garner | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In “The Sportswriter,” the first novel in this series, Frank started out as a sensitive young literary man who had published a book of stories. Though the Bascombe novels are set mostly in New Jersey’s wealthier suburbs, they are, oddly, road novels. Springsteen went from “Darkness on the Edge of Town” to “Letter to You.” Holy moly. Ford went from “Independence Day” and “The Lay of the Land” to “Let Me Be Frank With You” and “Be Mine.” Good Lord. The Bascombe novels are road novels, as well, because they are set during holidays, when families are in flux.

Persons: ”, Frank, Ford, yank, John Updike, Roth, Nathan Zuckerman, Angstrom, Bruce Springsteen —, Springsteen Organizations: Toyota Locations: New Jersey

☆ Chris Christie and the Republican Party’s Peril
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Peggy Noonan | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

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