William Blake may have described its “green and pleasant land” but this week England had traded green for white, as you can see in this NASA photograph (c/o Gizmodo).
England’s Green and Pleasant Land
Scientology Revealed
Janet Reitman, a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, spent five years researching Inside Scientology, which is reviewed here by Brook Wilensky-Lanford for The San Francisco Chronicle. Earlier this year, ‘Million Dollar Baby‘-screenwriter Paul Haggis spoke with Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker about L. Ron Hubbard‘s religion.
The Fiction of Borders
Molly Crabapple writes for VICE about translating Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani and the fiction of citizenship. As she explains it, “Words don’t need visas, but humans do. […] Citizenship is our most loaded form of fiction.”
Sequoia Nagamatsu Explores the Full Spectrum of Grief
Sequoia Nagamatsu's debut novel, How High We Go in the Dark, explores what happens when a virus is unleashed on the planet—and manages to inject moments of humor amid the darkness.
●
●
●
In the Ring with Norman Mailer
Is there a better way to honor Norman Mailer than by throwing a few punches? Nate Freeman was bored at the book party for J. Michael Lennon’s new biography, Norman Mailer: A Double Life, so he got into a drunken fist fight in Mailer’s apartment. We bet Mailer would approve.
●
●
Brief Encounters
●
●
Overlooked Books of the Decade
The Daily Beast offers up a list of “the most overlooked reads of the past 10 years – none of which involve a wizard, a vampire, or a code” from John McGahern’s By the Lake to Pandora in the Congo by Albert Sanchez Pinol.
●
●
A Convergence of Cowboys
For the Los Angeles Review of Books, Sean McCoy reports on the 35th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering and tells you everything you didn't know about the history and aesthetics of cowboy poetry.
●
●
●