Midweek Links: Literary Links from around the Web (February 2nd)

All the best literary links that are fit to, well, link

Frank Herbert’s science fiction classic, Dune, is getting a new adaptation. This time from Denis Villeneuve (who most recently directed the Ted Chiang adaptation Arrival).

Publishers Weekly profiles author (and The Mountain Goats frontman) John Darnielle: “Bending over his writing desk, Darnielle opens a drawer, pulls out a black drawstring bag, and from it pours dozens of multi-colored gaming dice onto the desktop. Picking up a particularly pointy die and rolling it around in his fingers, he explains its idiosyncrasies.”

George R. R. Martin is publishing a new A Song of Ice and Fire work! But it still isn’t book six *shakes fist*.

How Yukio Mishima’s work made a writer move to Japan: “Mishima himself was a controversial, even repellent, figure: obsessed with bodily perfection, militarism, and imperialism. He committed ritual suicide after staging a failed coup. Yet this ugly tale is told in some of the most exquisite prose I had ever read, beautifully rendered by translator Alfred Marks.”

Britain’s celebrated woman’s prize for fiction has lost Bailey’s as a sponsor.

Valeria Luiselli once tried to write a novel from an, uh, unusual perspective: “It was a really bad novel at the beginning. My idea was that it should be narrated by this plant. It was like, well, how would this plant know, see what happens in my apartment now and what happened in his apartment back then. Imagine the boredom of this plant, seeing the world from only one corner. It was a very bad idea, but it led them to other explorations that were much more worthwhile, and that eventually became a novel.”

9 great books that continue on after the adventure is done.

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