Largehearted Boy: Shorties (Literary Cookbooks, Patti Smith's Sequel to Just Kids, and more)

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December 18, 2012

Shorties (Literary Cookbooks, Patti Smith's Sequel to Just Kids, and more)

Book Riot lists five literary cookbooks.

Patti Smith tells Billboard she is working on a sequel to her memoir Just Kids.

49 year-end music lists were added yesterday to the master aggregation yesterday, including Pitchfork's top songs, You Ain't No Picasso's favorite songs, The Los Angeles Times' best albums, and much more.

30 lists were added yesterday to the master aggregation of year-end online "best books of 2012" lists, including Flavorwire & The Huffington Post's best art books, Seattle Times' best books, NPR's best biographies (put together by Michael Schaub), 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

The Rumpus interviews Andrew Solomon about his new book Far From The Tree: Parents, Children, and The Search For Identity.

The Rumpus: This is a big, wide-ranging book, but its origins were very personal: you’ve said that you wrote it to forgive your parents. What did you need to forgive them for?

Andrew Solomon: You know, I think that when…before I started on the book, I hadn’t drawn the distinction—which has become important to me since—which is between love and acceptance. You know, I feel as though when I was in the process of coming out of the closet it was upsetting for my parents, especially for my mother, and they weren’t very accepting of it. And I experienced that as their not being very loving. And actually, what I recognized writing the book, is that parents of children who have some kind of difference almost always have to struggle with it, and often manage to come through, and it’s their love that motivates them to come to terms with the strangeness or difference or whatever it is that’s extraordinary in their children. And having looked at all these other families I was able to say: Okay, my family didn’t throw me out, they didn’t want nothing to do with me, they weren’t actively rejecting. It just took them a while to get used to it.

John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats talks songwriting with CMJ.

Is it possible that the guy who The New Yorker once called "America's best non hip-hop lyricist" is turning his back on the literary style that made him such a beloved songwriter? No. Not at all. The new album is still filled with the type of characters who've always inhabited the dark hallways of the Mountain Goats' Home For Wayward Youth. "Everyone on the record is mentally ill to some extent, so really they're not just in crisis but sick, suffering in some way and finding a way to be OK with that," he says. They're fighters, gladiators and survivors.

Flavorwire lists the books that made the most "best of 2012" book lists.

Led Zeppelin members discuss their musical legacy at the Guardian.

Observatory profiles the new digital publication of graphic nonfiction, Symbolia.

Deceptive Cadence wonders what happened to the classical Christmas album.

Tin House interviews author William H. Gass.

Alt-J plays a Tiny Desk Concert at NPR Music.

The New York Times talks to independent bookstores about the year's hot titles.

Singer-songwriter Andrew Bird visits The Current studio for an interview and live performance.

Author Jeanne Thornton answers questions from the Reddit community.

Forbes lists its 30 brightest music stars under 30.

Amazon MP3 is adding five holiday songs to its free mp3 downloads every day through the end of the year.

Win the cookbook Bouchon Bakery and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.

Amazon MP3 offers 100 albums on sale for $5 each.
Amazon MP3 offers 100 digital holiday albums on sale for $5 each.
Amazon MP3 offers over 1,600 albums on sale for $3.99.
Amazon MP3 offers over 500 albums for sale for $2.99.
Amazon MP3 has 22 classic R&B and soul albums on sale for $2.99 each.
Amazon MP3 offers over 400 jazz albums on sale for $1.78.
Amazon MP3 offers over 33,000 free and legal mp3s.