“‘Man is hungry for beauty. There is a void.’ Nine words. Take a moment. Say them aloud. What else is there to be said?” –Arthur Krystal’s essay on Umberto Eco’s History of Beauty, at Powell’s Books. (via Arts & Letters Daily)
A History of Beauty
A Jump in Stature
Mark Twain first rose to fame as the author of an essay about a frog-jumping contest in California. Originally titled “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,” the essay went viral in America’s biggest newspapers, eventually inspiring the New York Tribune to write of Twain that “no reputation was ever so rapidly won.” Yet the humor which made the essay so popular is often lost on modern audiences, in no small part because, as Ben Turnoff writes in Lapham’s Quarterly, frontier humor isn’t funny if there’s no Wild West.
21 Authors for 2015
Recommended recommendations: 21 of the best debut and sophomore works being published this year, compiled by Refinery29. For even more, be sure to check out our Great 2015 Book Preview.
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Where the Letters Go
A startling conclusion from this data visualization of where in words each letter of the alphabet tends to fall: “the most common word may be ‘the, but the most representative word is ‘toe.’ ” (Also available: detailed methodology and algorithms for the data geeks; an explanation of data-viz as a narrative form for everyone else.)
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Two Brilliant Kids
This is an interview in which five-year-old Desmond and eight-year-old Everett ask some hard-hitting questions of M. Quint regarding her new book The Defiant, and in which Jonathan Lethem makes a brief cameo to helpfully facilitate the discussion–do you need any more reason to read this piece? Here’s a quick hit from C. Max Magee, creator of The Millions, on giving the classics to kids.
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An Unquenchable Thirst
In An Unquenchable Thirst by Mary Johnson, the former nun, who served alongside Mother Teresa, details her disenchantment with the religious life she once found so appealing.
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Gary Shteyngart’s Book Trailer
This “book trailer” released by Gary Shteyngart for his upcoming book Super Sad True Love Story has been the cause of much recent hilarity. If you have yet to see it, look for appearances by Jeffrey Eugenides, Jay McInerney and actor James Franco.