As befits an obsessive writer, Beckett read everything he could get his hands on, and of course had opinions on everything. The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Vol. 2, recently published by Cambridge University Press, sheds light on Beckett’s correspondence from 1941 – 1956, and is, of course, fascinating. To whet your appetite (if you don’t have a copy of the book yet), CUP has published a partial list of books mentioned by Beckett in his personal letters, some even with a few choice words of derision or approval, so we can get an idea of what he was reading in those fifteen years. Click through to see Beckett’s reading list, and then make sure to pick up a copy of the book for even more.

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Alexander Maksik’s new novel, You Deserve Nothing, is set in Paris and involves a dashing, charismatic teacher of romantic and existentialist authors who ends up starting a forbidden affair with one of his students. We thought he would be the perfect candidate to curate a list of 10 existential novels and one easily guessable play.

Maksik writes, “In the popular imagination, Existentialism is inextricable from left bank Paris café life – black turtlenecks, Les Deux Magots, Jean-Paul Sartre – but what I think of as the first great work of Existentialist fiction was written before Paris was even an idea. The Book of Job, the story of a man who suffers endlessly for no reason other than God’s whim. When Job has had enough and finally demands some explanation, God arrives and says, I’m paraphrasing here, Hey, did you make the world? No? Then sit down and shut up. Which is the biblical version of ‘because I’m the adult, I make the rules.’ So, in one way or another, the following novels all have their protagonists moving through similarly chaotic and unjust worlds, where there is no perfect logic, where there is no absolute morality, or reason and they are left to determine their own meaning in absurd and meaningless universes.”

If you’re in New York on September 10th, head over to Bar 82 for a round of Existentialist Trivia with Maksik. As always, send us your thoughts on classic existentialist texts in the comments section below.

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In 1960, two years after winning the Nobel prize for literature, French philosopher and author Albert Camus was killed in a freak car accident: Michel Gallimard, his friend and publisher, was driving Camus back to his home in Provence for the Christmas holiday when his car slipped on the icy and slammed into a tree. It seemed by all accounts a terrible accident, but now there are murmurs of conspiracy. Now, according to the Guardian, an Italian newspaper called Corriere della Sera is suggesting that the crash might have been caused by Soviet spies who damaged one of the tires on the car. This all comes from a paragraph in a diary written by Czech poet Jan Zábrana, which reads:

I heard something very strange from the mouth of a man who knew lots of things and had very informed sources. According to him, the accident that had cost Albert Camus his life in 1960 was organised by Soviet spies. They damaged a tyre on the car using a sophisticated piece of equipment that cut or made a hole in the wheel at speed… The order was given personally by [Dmitri Trofimovic] Shepilov [the Soviet foreign minister] as a reaction to an article published in Franc-tireur [a French magazine] in March 1957, in which Camus attacked [Shepilov], naming him explicitly in the events in Hungary.

Could it be true, or is it all conspiracy theories and rumor-mongering? Click through to the Guardian article to read more, and let us know what you think in the comments!

The Millions recently posted the very Shteyngart-y opening passage of Gary Shteyngart’s forthcoming novel, Super Sad True Love Story.

“Today I’ve made a major decision: I am never going to die. Others will die around me. They will be nullified. Nothing of their personality will remain. The light switch will be turned off.”

It got us thinking about our own favorite beginnings, both recent and classic. Below are some favorites from our bookshelf. Feel free to add your own picks in the comments section.

1. Slumberland by Paul Beatty

Best commentary on “post-blackness” considering Obama wasn’t even president when the book was written:

“You would think they’d be used to me by now. I mean don’t they know that after fourteen hundred years the charade of blackness is over? That we blacks, the once eternally hip, the people who were as right now as Greenwich Mean Time, are, as of today, as yesterday as stone tools, the velocipede, and the paper straw all rolled into one? The Negro is now officially human. Everyone, even the British, says so.”

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