Tidbits

Jackie ♦ July 14, 2008 ♦ 2 Comments

Summer reading progress: finished Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, am working my way through The Uses of Enchantment (the novel, not the Bettelheim classic) by Heidi Julavits. Never Let Me Go was a disquieting experience in that it deals with a subject (cloning) that often gets treated with dystopian pessimism or social-problem earnestness, which Ishiguro avoids completely. It’s really more of an alternative history of sorts, and raises interesting questions about the nature of humanity and love. More on Uses once I’m finished.

One of my favorite working novelists, Nick Hornby, has started blogging after giving up his five-year stint at The Believer (which coincidentally was co-founded by Julavits), which makes me very happy. In one of his entries, he links to this list of the “new classics” from the past 20 years or so, which makes me want to read all the ones I haven’t yet read on that list! Ambitious, I know.

And finally, I have a short news piece in the latest issue of ColorLines on reverse redlining by Wells Fargo here in Baltimore. Check it out, why don’t you, and if you haven’t read the mag before, you won’t be disappointed by their incisive coverage of all aspects of race and racism in American society.