Ahead of 1Q84 hitting shelves next week, Sam Anderson’s big profile of Haruki Murakami has arrived. Also don’t miss Chip Kidd‘s discussion of 1Q84‘s book design.
Murakami Profiled
Goodbye, Britannica
After nearly a quarter of a millennium, the Encyclopedia Britannica is ending its print run. While the publication plans to move to a digital subscription based model, and to continue to gather information about the known world, many are sad to note its passing. Roxane Gay offers a particularly heartfelt eulogy: " it was exciting to open the huge box and pull out the leather bound volumes, so many of them, the pages lined in gold."
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The Naked Bookseller
Recommended reading, though perhaps not viewing: "On the strange, true tale of the naked bookseller."
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Cozy Bildungsroman
Could “cozy literary fiction” ever be a thing? Mallory Ortberg at The Toast has penned a passionate defense of the unintentionally hilarious “cozy mystery” genre. Sate your mystery fix with this essay from The Millions’ own Matt Seidel on the four ways to wrap up a mystery tale.
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“Principally & Unaccountably Strange”
Murray Farish's debut collection, Inappropriate Behavior, includes tales of fictionalized or alternative history that incline toward the surreal. He discusses the "principally and unaccountably strange" with Evelyn Somers, who has written about his work before, at Bloom. Fancy yourself more weirdness? Head to Weird Fiction Review curated by Jeff VanderMeer, whose Southern Reach trilogy was just released in one volume.
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A Censor’s Tour
Recommended reading: Peter Hessler writes about spending a week on tour with his Chinese censor.
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Something Borrowed, Something Stolen
Is Kenneth Goldsmith continuing to lead the charge in a revolutionary poetry movement? Has he overstepped his bounds? Is conceptual poetry dead? Alec Wilkinson for The New Yorker and Cathy Park Hong for The New Republic offer their opinions.