What we read while pondering Meyer and Manning’s respective “leaves of absence”:
- We got on a little sportswriting bend this week, starting with good-guy-that-gets-it Mike Wise’s column on Tiger Woods, which plays off on those old “I am Tiger Woods” commercials that seem unnervingly dystopic these days (major bonus points to anyone who recognizes the kid from The Big Green on first viewing). We also enjoyed Deadspin‘s Best Best American Sports Writing of the Decade and its many links, even if we were a little upset none of us quite made the cut (Pierre’s pretty sure he’s No. 11 for his treatise on the AutoTyer). Finally, for even longer-form sportswriting, New York Magazine conducted a symposium of sorts on Bill Simmons’ recent behemoth, The Book of Basketball. Lot of interesting stuff from some diverse viewpoints.
- Some argue that the premise behind this whole Aught Lang Syne feature–that the new decade begins in 2010–is misguided. They’re wrong.
- Speaking of the Aughts, we posted on the decade’s best nonfiction, but here is a more particular account on the best food books of the decade.
- Continuing to speak of the Aughts, John S presented his songs of the decade, but Nielsen has his own ideas.
- Also on the radio, there was a bit of a controversy last week to see who would have England’s No. 1 song in the week leading up to Christmas–apparently a big deal in the UK. A grassroots campaign against “the Simon Cowell music machine” helped catapult Rage Against the Machine into the top spot. The band went on BBC 5 to discuss this victory for social justice and play the new number 1, “Killing in the Name Of.”
- A few Mondays ago, we linked to an interview with famed Russian translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. In case that didn’t slake your interviews of literary translators thirst, here’s The Mookse and the Gripes with Chris Andrews, who has done most of the translating of Roberto Bolano for New Directions Press (although NHP did not have the rights to The Savage Detectives or 2666, which Natasha Wimmer translated for Picador and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, respectively).
