The New York Public Library has bought psychedelic guru Timothy Leary’s papers. The 335 boxes contain journals, videotapes, photographs and thousands of letters from avid trippers, including Allen Ginsberg, Aldous Huxley, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey and, yes, Cary Grant.
NYPL Gets Trippy
“Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?”
In a piece for Oxford American, Mark Edmundson has an important message for incoming college freshpersons.
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New Critical Flame
Issue three of The Critical Flame has arrived. Richard Nash’s review of Ted Striphas’ The Late Age of Print is a highlight.
Another Movie Adaptation in Suck City
Nick Flynn‘s memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (reviewed on our site last year) is being adapted into a movie for 2012. Being Flynn will star Paul Dano as Flynn, and his parents will be played by Robert De Niro and Julianne Moore. You can check out a trailer here. Or, if you want to check out what kind of books Flynn likes, you can check out his 2010 entry in our Year In Reading series.
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Nikki Giovanni on Daydreams and Owning Yourself
The 77-year-old poet discusses politics, evening rituals, Cleopatra the dog, and her new writing collection.
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Inquiry and Imagination
At The Nervous Breakdown, Micah McRary talks with Leslie Jamison about her use of POV, her new book of essays and whether her criticism might be dubbed “evasive biography.” You could also read our interview with Jamison or else read Ryan Teitman’s review of The Empathy Exams.
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Our Ramshackle Universe
“I’m writing about people. Man involved in the human dilemma, facing the problems bigger than he, whether he licks them or whether they lick him. But man as frail and fragile as he is, yet he will keep on trying to be brave and honest and compassionate, and that, to me, is very fine and very interesting — and that is the reason I think any writer writes.” William Faulkner on why writers write in a rare recording from the University of Virginia, via Brain Pickings.
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Also, Empathy
Recommended Reading: In The Atlantic, Alaa Al Aswany shows how literature can inspire empathy by analyzing one word, “also,” in Dostoyevsky’s The House of the Dead. Al Aswany also has a new book out this week, featured in our latest New Release Day.
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