"> <figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " style="max-width:540px;"> <div style="padding-bottom:56.296295166016%;" class=" image-block-wrapper has-aspect-ratio "> <img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/0ce4d-image-asset.jpeg" alt="" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="" /> </div> </figure> </div> I loved everything about this singular, poetic, deeply moving book. Huge congrats to Max Porter on a phenomenal debut. (Here’s the review that led me to it.)
From his extraordinary book, When Breath Becomes Air:
When you come to one of the many moments in life where you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests, satisfied.
Having just finished book three of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle (I enjoyed the first two more, though this volume’s still captivating), I was eager to listen to both part one and part two of the author’s interviews on Michael Silverblatt’s “Bookworm.”
It’s great listening. These insights from Silverblatt — which followed his comment that Knausgaard clearly knows his “great literature” — rang especially true for me:
What’s daring about My Struggle is that you’re willing to put the difficulty of the literature of the century — Joyce on — aside, to recapture the human.
Continuing a15-year tradition (though one that’s gotten briefer with age and fatherhood), here’s a roundup of some of my favorite things experienced during the past 12 months: Books
My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, Elena Ferrante
The Story of a New Name, Elena Ferrante
The Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante
Lila, Marilyn Robinson
My Struggle: Book 2, Karl Ove Knausgård
Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzzVdi3HOfU?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]
My Bubba — great discovery for me via NPR Tiny Desk Concerts.
The first segment on high school freshman and Instagram (“’Relevance’ is a big term right now…. In middle school, we were definitely really relevant… ”) is a pretty incredible window.
Back before Tamara and I had our son in the summer of 2013, I used to keep regular lists of my “Annual Favorites” of the year — the best books, movies, TV shows, podcasts, exhibitions and so on that I’d consumed that year.
To say my rate of cultural digestion changed with fatherhood would be an understatement; that said, I still have an interest in logging the great stuff (if only for myself).
"> <figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " style="max-width:500px;"> <div style="padding-bottom:56.400001525879%;" class=" image-block-wrapper has-aspect-ratio "> <img src="http://sschenkenberg.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/2b359-image-asset.png" alt="" /><img class="thumb-image" alt="" /> </div> </figure> </div> readinggass:
Readers: I’m very pleased to announce the launch of TheGassInterviews.org.
Free to all and readable on any device, the microsite collects a dozen essential interviews that Gass gave between the late 1970s and 2011. It’s titled “The Ear’s Mouth Must Move,” a phrase of Gass’ own.