Writers wanted, Isaab Babel's new translation, Roxane Gay talks to Ta-Nehisi Coates, Pico Iyer on Las Vegas and Pyongyang: Cultural Digest, Monday August 17

• Writers wanted: where writers are finding agents and where writers are getting published.
• Excellent article on the "Brutal Lyricism of Isaac Babel." A new translation of the 1926 Red Cavalry. "Describing the absurdities and calamities of war, Babel undermines any version of Russian history that would have us think unswervingly nobel."
• Part of their interesting talks series, Barnes and Noble hosts a conversation between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Roxane Gay.
• Pico Iyer sets his razor-sharp intelligence on considering the differences and similarities between Las Vegas and Pyongyang, both being cities of "a mid-20th century spirit that saw what power and profit could be found in constructing mass fantasies..."