Teju Cole ate dinner with V.S. Naipaul, and despite the difficulties he'd anticipated—mostly stemming from disagreeing with some of the elder writer's, let's say, political opinions over the years—had a few glasses of claret and a really nice time. You will too, if you read Cole's tense but elegant report on the evening.
On the topic of controversial writers: If you loved Emily Landau's piece on cancer, Rakoff, and the Hitch, Mark Kingwell's appreciative review of Mortality makes a good pairing.
The Wire, is not a Victorian novel. Verily, it is a television drama.
Cory Doctorow describes David Byrne's latest book, How Music Works, in terms that extend beyond music; he seems to be saying that the book is actually a meditation on the ties of technology to creativity, and to art. There's an excerpt up at the Smithsonian, along with an interview with the man himself on how to enjoy music. And then, of course, there's this.
