First of all, this isn’t book-related, but I don’t know how I can lead with anything else because this is what I’ve mostly been thinking about all this week and last week: Following the police shooting of yet another unarmed black man (kid, actually), in Ferguson, everything is horrible. Here’s Brittany Cooper talking about how tired she is of these stories as they come one after another, seemingly forever. And here’s Greg Howard talking about the militarization of the police force and the criminalization of young black men, and here’s Jelani Cobb on anger and weariness. Y’all, this makes me so angry and sad, and I can’t think of one thing I can do about it.
In happier news, Patrick Ness has a new Tumblr, which he has used to announce his next book. !!!!! He says he hopes we like it. I am pretty sure I will like it, Patrick Ness.
This article from the New York Book Review irritated me in many ways, but ended by saying something that I wish got said more: “There are many ways to live a full, responsible, and even wise life that do not pass through reading literary fiction.” Thank you for saying that, Tim Parks. It is super true. I get tired of all the hand-wringing about people reading the Wrong Things and living Unexamined Lives as a result.
The NEA has a new collection of essays about translation, which you can access for free online. The essays are fascinating and insightful, although predictably, most of the translations they recommend are books written by men. #WomeninTranslation
This is the story of the time an American anthropologist told Hamlet to an African tribe.
“That was a very good story,” added the old man, “and you told it with very few mistakes.”
Content note: The piece was written in the 1960s. That is why you feel slightly uncomfortable while reading it. Anthropologists today would probably not write it in exactly this same way.
John Scalzi mimics the angry men of the Hugo Awards.
And finally, if you haven’t yet signed up to participate in A More Diverse Universe later this year, now is a great time to do so! The wonderful Aarti of Book Lust is hosting this year, and she’s made it easier than ever for you to play along. Just read one book by an author of color and post about it in the last two weeks of September (the 14th through the 27th). If you’re not sure what to read, Aarti has suggestions for you here and here and here.
So what are you waiting for? Go sign up and start reading!