Miéville on “Hauntology”

PSA: The ebook of Infinite Jest now goes for just $4.99. (Might just be a limited time thing.)

This month marks Dante‘s 750th birthday. In an essay for the New Yorker John Kleiner considers what the poet means to Italy, from the middle schools where his poetry is taught to pre-teens to televised readings of the Paradiso in space.

For every reader who grew up enamored with LeVar Burton‘s now-cancelled PBS show, Reading Rainbow, there’s fresh hope. A Kickstarter campaign to create a spin-off, web-based version of Reading Rainbow that aims to spread literacy to children in under-served schools was launched yesterday and has already received a significant portion of its funding goal. While there are some concerns about the project, the nostalgia factor is incredibly strong, and who doesn’t want to spread the love of reading to children?

Aimee Bender, Year in Reading alum and author of, most recently, The Color Master, writes for The New York Times about the structural genius of Goodnight Moon: “[The story] does two things right away: It sets up a world and then it subverts its own rules even as it follows them.”