- Joan Didion is one of the Internet's biggest literary celebrities. I notice this, too, that anytime I Tweet anything about Joan Didion, it gets retweeted, favorited and commented upon. What is it about Didion that so inspires contemporary readers? A New Republic article on her, her life, and a new biography by Tracy Daugherty.
- This Tomás González book, In the Beginning Was the Sea (what a great title), has been on my must-read list for months now and this LA Review of Books article has bumped it up a few more notches. González's book straddles the hazy line between fiction and memoir, telling as he does the "real life" story of the death of his brother.
- Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, long a darling of the translated fiction world (New Directions has slowly been cranking out her works for a number of years now) is about to hit the big time with recent pieces in The New Yorker and The New York Times. Lispector, who died in 1977, was as glamorous and beautiful as she was innovative and challenging as a writer. Benjamin Moser wrote the definitive English-language biography of her in 2012 which is widely credited with creating her rebirth as one of the Latin world's most underappreciated writers of the 20th century.
- An LA theatre is offering a master class on the works of French writers/director Claude Sautet. Director of Les chose et la vie and Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud, Sautet, who died in 2000, was one of the most influential of French auteurs. The theatre may be willing to offer some online component of the master class.
- He bought a photo, assured that it was a photo of the Brontë Sisters. Alice Spawls explains why she thinks it's likely NOT a photo of the literary trio.
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| Just three other dour ladies, not Anne, Emily, Charlotte after all |
