U.S. forces stationed in a remote area of Afghanistan recently received about twenty copies of Bill O’Reilly’s book Pinheads and Patriots. Their orders upon receiving the tomes: Burn them.
O’Reilly Book Burn
The Barbarian Nurseries to be a Film?
Héctor Tobar’s The Barbarian Nurseries is being developed into a movie, reports Edward Douglas for ComingSoon. (You can read an excerpt of the book over here.) Elsewhere, you can read Tobar’s take on how “the writer is a revered figure in France.”
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The Hellman’s Virgin
Recommended Reading: Ottessa Moshfegh on eating mayonnaise for the first time.
Carla Hayden Confirmed
Carla Hayden became the first African American woman to be the Librarian of Congress on Wednesday.
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Creepy Cervantes
A team of archaeologists just found Cervantes‘s body, and while that seems like a fun literary and historical event, the New Yorker‘s Ilan Stevens has a slightly different perspective: “Frankly, there is something creepy about bringing Cervantes back from the dead.”
Holy Land
In the 1880s, a group of rural Illinoisans formed a Christian sect that believed that a local woman, Dorinda Beekman, was the new Jesus Christ. When Mrs. Beekman died, a follower of hers claimed that her spirit lived inside him; as the new leader of the sect, he moved his followers into a barn and named it Heaven. At The Paris Review Daily, Dan Visel looks back on this odd chapter of history, as well as the novel it inspired. (Related: Eric Shonkwiler on the literature of the Midwest.)
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Hugh Grant in Cloud Atlas
Hugh Grant is the latest actor to join the cast of the move adaptation of David Mitchell‘s Cloud Atlas.
Exit, Pursued by a Bear
It turns out even a museum exhibit of Shakespeare’s works can make for a dramatic experience. At The Daily Beast, Helen Anders demonstrates that there’s a little bit for everybody at the “Shakespeare in Print and Performance” exhibition at the University of Texas. We’ve brought you a bit on the Bard before.
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