The new issue of The New York Review of Books is out. A highlight, as usual, is Michael Wood, who does a better job than we did with Inherent Vice. But those of us on this side of the pay wall will have to make do with Lorrie Moore‘s intriguing essay on Clarice Lispector.
Lispector Inspector
Going Bananas Over a Piece of Cake
Ever wonder where the phrase "worth his salt" came from? How about "spill the beans"? At The Smithsonian Magazine, Lisa Bramen traces the origins of food-related idioms. (via.)
Cruel Months
Why is it "The Waste Land" and not "The Wasteland?" Poetry investigates.
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To Booker or Not to Booker
Maybe you’re a speed-reader or maybe you’re a psychic who plans their reading lists months ahead of time. Those are the only two possible scenarios by which you may have finished reading all of the books on this year’s Man Booker Long List. And if that’s the case, it’s time to get started on The Guardian’s “Not The Booker” Long List.
Charter Schools
Diane Ravitch takes on the documentary Waiting for Superman in the "Myth of Charter Schools" for The New York Review of Books.
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There Once Was a Girl
Recommended Reading: “There Once Was a Girl” by Katy Waldman at Slate. “Anorexia is the mental health equivalent of the red shoes that make you dance until you die. It is a performance—of femininity, of damage, of power—that turns into a prison.”
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The Song of the Two Walts
Walter White is the new Walt Whitman. "Both are intellectual pioneers in their fields, their legacies—centuries apart—demanding risk, casting them outside of society, gliding out into the world, liberated from societal constraints," Kera Bolonik writes about Whitman's influence on Breaking Bad.