At The Cut, Molly Fischer reviews Eula Biss’s new book, Having and Being Had, and considers the trap of the “Self-Aware” writer: “The problem isn’t the self-awareness itself. . . . The problem is the defensive postures that all the self-awareness seems to produce, among characters and the writers who create them.”
The Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize has been awarded to Lars Horn for Voice of the Fish.
Anthropologist, author, and activist David Graeber passed away yesterday at the age of fifty-nine. Graeber’s books include Debt: The First 5000 Years, The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement, and, most recently, Bullshit Jobs. On Twitter, tributes have been pouring in, remembering Graeber as a rigorous thinker, inspiring writer, and generous person.
On The Ezra Klein Show podcast, Robert Draper tries to answer the question, “Why the hell did America invade Iraq?” Draper’s new book, To Start a War is an in-depth, blow-by-blow account of that decision.
Next Thursday, September 10th, the 92nd Street Y is hosting a (virtual) celebration of Audre Lorde. Lorde, the poet, essayist, and activist who died in 1992, has a new collection out this fall, edited by Roxane Gay. Gay will be accompanied by Mahogany L. Browne, Saeed Jones and Porsha Olayiwola for a reading and discussion of Lorde’s work.
At Vulture, E. Alex Jung profiles artist, writer, and filmmaker Miranda July: “She puts her phone inside an airtight container with a timer that beeps like a bomb and locks up the internet with Freedom for Mac. When she wakes up Thursday morning, she writes down what she dreamt the night before and then gets to work. Welcome to Planet Miranda July. Population: one, or maybe 5 million, depending on how you count souls.”
