Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair on his cancer diagnosis: “To the dumb question ‘Why me?’ the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?”
Hitchens on Cancer
Evelyn Waugh’s Brother Invented the Cocktail Party
“Unable to replicate the success of his first novel [The Loom of Youth],” writes Philip Quarles, “[Alec Waugh] did create a lasting impact by being credited with inventing the cocktail party when he shocked guests by serving, instead of afternoon tea, rum swizzles.”
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The End of Something
Maybe we can’t have it all, says Rachel Shteir at the Chronicle of Higher Education, but can’t women at least have another Feminine Mystique?
Everything Flows
Have you seen this stunning map which shows “the delicate tracery of wind flowing over the US?” It’s positively hypnotic.
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Pirouettes
We’ve covered the Atlantic series By Heart a number of times before. It features notable authors writing about their favorite passages. In the latest edition, Mary-Beth Hughes picks out a paragraph from Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower, about a poet who’s trying to cope with grief. Sample quote: “Reading Fitzgerald, I felt it was possible to write as I’d experienced dancing.”
Borrow Harry Potter Electronically
Amazon has announced that all seven Harry Potter books will be available via its Kindle Lending Library starting on June 19th.
Slow Down, September!
There was a lot going on this September. Luckily, the good folks over at The Literary Hub have provided us with this helpful list of five of the best new books September had to offer. A personal favorite includes Emily Donoghue’s The Wonder, in which the protagonist appears to be subsisting on nothing but water.
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The Headless Horseman
“Every culture has its monsters,” and Jason Diamond writes about the Headless Horseman and one of the oldest American horror stories for Electric Literature.
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Sex and the City
Recommended Reading: On the reinvention of Sex and the City in Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life to create something recognizable and true. You could also read our interview with Yanagihara.
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