An election year is upon us, and at the Times, John Williams offers up some reading material for the months to come. Among the books mentioned is my favorite, Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72.
Election Year Reading
Digital Collections
The New York Public Library released more than 180,000 of its public-domain items, ranging from maps and manuscripts to ancient texts and sheet music. The files can be downloaded on the library’s website, available to the public without restriction.
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In a Room of the Auction House
“It can not be that I monopolize / The making of the songs that give you praise / Or that such pools as are your dearest eyes / Have just one bather through the unclear days. / Then, let me take my place amid the pack, / If I so pack my songs with your rare worth / There were no quality they then should lack / But they were bettered by that happy death.” A previously unpublished Ezra Pound sonnet selling at auction is always newsworthy–especially when it fetches nearly $12,000. Here is a related Millions piece about the difficult poetry of Ezra Pound, John Berryman, and Ted Berrigan.
Friday Night Filibusters
Going Clear author Lawrence Wright is adapting his play, Sonny’s Last Shot, to develop an HBO series about “the crazy, brutal world of Texas politics,” reports Deadline.
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An American Bestseller Abroad
Ian McEwan stopped by BBC’s Radio4 flagship news program to discuss, among other things, his love for John Williams’s Stoner. The novel, as Claire Cameron reported for us last month, is currently flying off the shelves in the Netherlands. However since McEwan gave Williams’s forgotten masterpiece a shout out, UK buyers have been snapping up four copies per minute.
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The Will to Climb
The Seattle Times reviews The Will to Climb by Bainbridge Island mountaineer Ed Viesturs (with David Roberts), which chronicles what it takes to climb Annapurna, a particularly challenging Himalayan peak. Viesturs appears tonight at Town Hall Seattle.
On WTF Moments
At The Space Review, which bills itself as an online journal devoted to the final frontier, Jeff Foust takes a look at The Pioneer Detectives, our new e-book by Konstantin Kakaes. The verdict? “It’s a fascinating reminder of how complex and challenging the scientific process can be.”
Agreeable Lives
Whether or not you knew that Rose Williams, sister of Tennessee, inspired the character of Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie, you’ll probably appreciate this Paris Review elegy, which goes through Rose’s short life and the effect it had on her brother.
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Down the Rabbit Hole
Recommended Reading: In her new memoir, Joyce Carol Oates praises Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass as “the singular book that changed my life – that made me yearn to be a writer.”
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