« older | Main Largehearted Boy Page | newer »
December 28, 2012
Shorties (John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats for Poet Laureate, Barbara Kingsolver on the Social Responsibilities of Literature, and more)
Sign a petition to appoint John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats U.S. Poet Laureate.
Omnivoracious interviews Barbara Kingsolver about her latest novel, Flight Behavior.
Flight Behavior incorporates your well-known passions for environmentalism and sustainability—as you mentioned, you trained as a biologist. Is it a challenge to bring social responsibility into the worlds that you create, or does that happen organically?
I would say it's probably completely incidental. It's not what I'm setting out to do. I'm not trying to tell anyone how to think or, heaven forbid, how to behave—that's not the domain of fiction at all. In fact, one of the things that I really love about literary fiction is that it's one of the few kinds of writing that doesn't tell us what to think or what to buy or what to wear.
41 year-end music lists were added Monday to the master aggregation yesterday, including Paste's best music documentaries, Stereogum's top EDM songs, and many more.
21 lists were added yesterday to the master aggregation of year-end online "best books of 2012" lists, including Kirkus Reviews' best book apps, Rabid Reads' best werewolf books, and many more.
The Largehearted Boy books of the year (more lists to come):
my favorite graphic novels of 2012
my favorite nonfiction books of 2012
my favorite novels of 2012
my favorite short story collections of 2012
Morning Edition interviews Bryant Terry about his new cookbook, The Inspired Vegan.
On the historical origins of vegan soul food
"Obviously, when people hear vegan and soul food, they think that it's oxymoronic — how diametrically opposed can those things be? But for me, my goal with the book was really helping to refocus people's attentions on the origins of African-American cuisine. And when we move past the kind of comfort foods and looked at the kind of daily diet that many African-Americans in generations past would enjoy, it is replete with these nutrient-dense leafy greens — collards, mustards, turnips, dandelion greens, legumes such as butter beans and black-eyed peas. These are the nutrient-rich foods that any dietitian or nutritionist would say we all should be eating. So I really wanted to help paint a more diverse and complex picture of African-American cuisine."
Reverb lists the five best new album announcements of 2012.
Gary Shteyngart is interviewed at at The Daily Beast.
MTV previews 2013 films inspired by and adapted from literature.
PopMatters interviews Dave Macleaan of Django Django.
Morning Edition interviews Richard Barnett about his new book, The Book of Gin: A Spirited World History from Alchemists' Stills and Colonial Outposts to Gin Palaces, Bathtub Gin, and Artisanal Cocktails.
On the renaissance of gin in the last several years
"Now is probably the best time in the last 500 years to be drinking gin. I think you've got a better quality and certainly a much wider diversity of producers and flavors going on. I think it really started in the — I think it would have been the very late '80s, when Bombay Sapphire appeared on the scene. For about 20 or 30 years, gin had really sort of been in decline. It was becoming a sort of more industrial, more standardized product. But with the appearance of Bombay Sapphire, you get the idea of a boutique gin. And that's kicked off an entire sort of renaissance in the production of gin. Suddenly, you've got many, many smaller producers setting up on a kind of boutique craft level, producing their own distinctive spirits."
Margaret Atwood talks to All Things Considered about her new serialized novel.
Guardian writers share their favorite musical moments of the year.
The New York Times reviews Jami Attenberg's novel The Middlesteins.
Hip Hop and Politics lists hip hop songs that address the issue of gun violence.
All Things Considered examines the state of publishing in 2012.
Morning Edition examines the challenge streaming music services face trying to find paying customers.
NPR lists the best literary heroines of 2012.
At NPR Music, Maura Johnston looks back on the year in music writing.
Win Will Hermes' book Love Goes to Buildings on Fire and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's contest at Largehearted Boy.
Amazon MP3 offers 100 albums on sale for $5 each.
Amazon MP3
Amazon MP3 offers over 1,400 albums on sale for $3.99.
Amazon MP3
Amazon MP3 offers over 400 jazz albums on sale for $1.78.
Amazon MP3
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
The list of online "best of 2012" book lists
The list of online "best of 2012" music lists
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics & graphic novels)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
daily mp3 downloads
Largehearted Word (the week's best new books)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
