Bookforum. Feb/Mar 08. (+ Atlantic.)

"It's amazing to think that Paranoid Park the film originated as a novel, and it's even more amazing to think that the film is rather faithful to its source," writes Bilge Ebiri. Besides his engaging telling of the story behind the adaptation, there's little else in the new issue of Bookforum that's directly film-related. Even so, this'll probably be the highlight of my reading day; maybe yours, too.

If you begin at the beginning, that'll be James Wolcott's piece on Donald Barthelme, a Glenn Kenny favorite (and some day, I'll have to relate my own brush-with-greatness Barthelme story). How about an appetizer first, though: Barthelme's "The Rise of Capitalism," hand-picked from Jessamyn West's barthelmismo by wood s lot.

And course, there's much more essential reading in this issue; Nathan Heller's piece on Guy Debord's war board game, for example. In keeping with the decision made several issues back, it's all here, online, front to back.

In other welcome news, another magazine has decided that the best plug for the magazine is, in fact, the magazine. The Atlantic's site is freely accessible to all as of today: "Now, in addition to such offerings as blogs, author dispatches, slideshows, interviews, and videos, readers can also browse issues going back to 1995, along with hundreds of articles dating as far back as 1857, the year the Atlantic was founded."

Posted by dwhudson at January 24, 2008 1:00 AM