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Raymond Carver

Books

The 10 US States With the Greatest Love Stories

By Emily Temple on

Earlier this week, we noticed this map of the country, with a literary love story assigned to each state, over at Amazon. Though the US (and the world) has no shortage of amazing novels of passion, we’re betting you don’t have time to read 50 novels during this the most romantic of months. To help you out (and in case you want to get the perfect book for that special someone this week), we’ve picked the ten states that we think have the all-time best love stories in American literature. Click through to see which ones we chose — and feel free to disagree with us in the comments! … Read More

Books

10 of the Greatest Short Stories About Love

By Emily Temple on

Tomorrow, Junot Díaz’s newest story collection, This is How You Lose Her, hits shelves, and we predict that everyone you know will be reading it by the weekend. Or at least they should be — this messy, vulgar set of tales about misadventures of the heart is filled with Díaz’s signature searing voice, loveable/despicable characters and so-true-it-hurts goodness. To celebrate Díaz’s new collection, we’ve put together a collection of a few more of our all-time favorite love stories, from the recent to the classic, and dealing with all kinds of that most complex emotion. Of course, this is not by all means a definitive list — we rejoice at how un-definitive it is, in fact — so please add your own favorite short stories on love in the comments. … Read More

Books

The Books That Make Guys Swoon

By Daniel Roberts on

A couple weeks ago we posted about the books that might make you undateable — at least in the eyes of those who might, perhaps, yes, judge your romantic appeal based on the book you’re reading. (Sorry, but this is a thing that happens.) We were inspired by a Paris Review blog post about the books guys should read to attract girls. But what about the inverse? What kind of books might make a girl appealing to guys? Culled from a number of anecdotal conversations with young men that read, collated by us, here’s a sampling of books the ladies might consider sticking their noses into if they’re hoping to catch that special literary fly guy’s eye on the subway, at the bus station, in the library or around the copier room. … Read More

Books

‘One Story’ Names the Top 10 Short Stories of All Time

By Kathleen Massara on

As a fitting finale to National Short Story Month, we asked the talented crew over at One Story to name their ten favorite epigrammatic tales. Tanya Rey, the managing editor, explained via e-mail that their choices are in no particular order, so anti-Salingerists are advised to not get all huffy just because JD leads the list. Tanya writes, “Certain authors (e.g., Cheever, Moore, Johnson, Barthleme) were nominated more than once, for different stories, so we tried to choose the most ‘classic’ of those stories. This was not exactly a scientific or objective process.” However, we stand behind the choices because they’re some of our favorites as well. What do you think, dear readers? … Read More

Web

What’s on at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds in Our Office

By Caroline Stanley on

Today at Flavorpill, we watched Kanye West go all kinds of crazy on Twitter. We looked at photoshopped pics of David Bowie. We were impressed by the beard on the winner of this year’s Ernest Hemingway Lookalike Contest. We decided that Obama and Snickers need to sit… Read More

Books

Bibliokleptomaniacs Dig God… and Beatniks

By Isis Madrid on

Bookworms are an interesting sort. Some (bibliophiles) compulsively hoard literary nuggets until their shelves sag and creak, yet never bother to actually read their collection. Others can barely tear themselves away from the freshly-vacuumed bookstore corner in which they devour the newest Malcolm Gladwell for fear that the trip home will forever interrupt their cozy date. Still others are library hermits, zigging-and-zagging through those musty stacks in search of bookish bliss. There are bookworms with Kindles and bookworms that are constantly juggling the four paperbacks they’re reading (at once). There are bookworms that get turned on by first-editions and bookworms keen on newer, abstract renditions. There are bookworms that follow the Tao of Oprah and bookworms who only listen to Deepak Chopra. But perhaps the most intriguing bookworm of all is the bibliokleptomaniac, or what we like to call the kleptobrainiac. These people are book thieves, the nerdiest outlaws this side of Hogwarts. Fascinated? Appalled? Exposed? Find out what the most shoplifted books of modern times are after the… Read More

Books

Big Brother Book Club: Book Snob Edition

By Kristen O'Toole on

We saw greatness this week. A mom reading one of these Superman & Wonder Woman books, personalized and starring your child, out loud to her son during morning rush hour. Atlas Shrugged and House of Cards next to each other on the F train (which doesn’t even go to Wall Street). And on our way into the bagel shop the other day, we spotted “A Small Good Thing” on a page over a shoulder, and awkwardly circled around the table to see which Raymond Carver collection was in the reader’s hands — Cathedral. Much like last week’s Kindle dude, it took us a great deal of self-control not to sit down and regale him with our knowledge and love of Carver. And look at this new edition! So much prettier than the old ones, with drawings of people with vague faces and a blocky font that felt unforgivably ’80s.

More of our favorite books popping up in public after the jump. … Read More

Books

Big Brother Book Club: From Victor Hugo to David Sedaris

By Angelina Venezia on

Occasionally when we’re on the 1 scoping out all of your reads, there’s a title that we just can’t see no matter how much we squint or how long we wait for a page turn, or train lurch that shifts the book ever so slightly. We’re intrigued and we cra buy generic viagra

ne our necks (as inconspicuously as possible) in hopes of seeing it. We wonder if people are starting to notice.

This morning, there was a particularly frustrating lady sitting diagonally from us with a behemoth of a library book between her hands. There was a dead white guy on the cover. MARK TWAIN? No. EDGAR ALLAN POE? No. Blast! We didn’t recognize the face, and wow was the protective, plastic covering reflective, making it even harder to make out what the tiny black font said.

As the train screeched to a stop at 18th Street, and the lady closed the book and stood up to take her leave, we managed to catch the fine print as she walked past and waited for the door to open. VICTOR HUGO! Mystery solved. A quick Amazon search confirmed that the cover was in fact that of Modern Library’s LES MISERABLES. We hope you appreciate our dedicated detective work. … Read More