Perhaps the best piece of baseball writing ever put to paper (duly praised here), John Updike’s “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu” about Ted Williams is being released in a slim, stylish volume from Library of America this week.
Hey, Hub Fans
Beach Bods and Nightmares: Cormac McCarthy
“Acclaimed novelist Cormac McCarthy, 79, wowed Cabo beachgoers Wednesday after debuting his sizzling new summer physique in a light-blue Vilebrequin swimsuit that showed off at least 20 extra pounds of lean muscle.” (Bonus: Benjamin Percy thinks McCarthy may have written “the scariest passage in all of literature.”)
Democrats and the Written Word
Upgrade U
The New Republic has launched its new redesign, and with it, asks the question as to whether Beyonce can have it all, let alone us mere mortals.
Loyal Opposition
Widely linked to already, but worth reading: James Wood on A.S. Byatt‘s The Children’s Book in the LRB. A mixed review that nonetheless makes me want to read the book is, for me, one mark of a good critic.
From word nerd to language animal
David Mitchell, when questioned about his language and genre experiments, particularly in Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, responds: “It’s a bit like asking a duck billed platypus if it should be considered a mammal or a bird.” The Millions also profiled Mitchell, though we never settled either way on the bird/mammal issue.