n+1 publishes a chilling personal account of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, as the crisis mounts at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
They call it an accident, a catastrophe. But it was a war.
Pop Quiz, Hot Shot
In celebration of Bloomsday, The Guardian tests your Joyce knowledge with “16 questions for 16 June.” Pair with novelist Henriette Lazaridis‘s remembrance of Bloomsdays past.
●
●
Not what he, nor I, expected.
Teju Cole on partying, though very civilly, with V.S. Naipaul: “The combination of ego, tenderness, and sly provocation was typical.”
●
●
Harry Potter and the Depressing Play
For a boy wizard whose saga ended six years ago, Harry Potter is in the news a lot lately. The Chosen One got a makeover by Jim Kay, and now J.K. Rowling is working on a stage play based on Potter. Don’t expect a stage set of Hogwarts because the play will focus on Harry’s early years at 4 Privet Drive.
●
●
“Her prints certainly have muscle, and a lot of it.”
Flannery O’Connor: The Cartoons, a collection of one-panel comic prints made by Flannery O’Connor during her time in college, is due out later this week. Meanwhile, Barry Moser exhibits a few of the highlights.
Wollstonecraft’s Legacy
“Inspired by her governess, the radical feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, Margaret King cast aside her immense privilege, cross-dressed as a man to go to medical school, and inspired a new generation of women to push against the rigid conventions of their era.” Meet Margaret King at Longreads.
Read, Read, Read
Hooray, poetry! This piece from The New York Times highlights three new collections you should consider checking out: Shaler’s Fish by Helen Macdonald, Poems by Ron Rash, and Blue Laws by Kevin Young.
●
●
Tom Hanks, Fiction Writer
Tom Hanks’s debut collection of short stories is due out in October. “The theme of the collection will be typewriters,” reports The Guardian, “with each tale involving one of these more and more scarce machines.”
●
●