Gaia, Pale Blue Dot, Lonely Planet, etc… It’s time for a new addition to Earth’s list of aliases: the rainbow potato. A new map of our planet’s gravity field reveals the variations in gravitational pull depending on your geographic location.
“Rainbow Potato Day” Has a Nice Ring
“Lissa” by Michael Bourne
Tin House magazine has posted a short story, "Lissa," by our own Michael Bourne as part of its regular online Flash Fridays feature. Also be sure to catch his Year In Reading entry that posted earlier today.
Two Two-Initialed Critics Discuss Tolkien’s Work
HTMLGiant’s A. D. Jameson went and saw part one of The Hobbit in theatres so now none of us have to do the same. Instead, sit back and check out his “250 Points” about the film. Or, if you’d prefer a blast of Tolkien analysis from the past, check out W. H. Auden’s 1956 book review of The Return of the King.
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Paris Est Une Fête
In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris, Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast has rocketed to number one best-seller status in France as an emblem of cultural defiance. With a title in its French iteration that roughly translates to “Paris is a celebration,” the sudden popularity of the book run even Amazon out of stock.
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Where You Write
We showed you ours, and you showed us yours. Here's a Storify of the 60+ responses we got when we asked you to invite us into your #writespace. Peep our Tumblr this weekend, where we'll be featuring some of our favorites. And of course, keep 'em coming: tag a picture of where you write with #writespace on Twitter or Tumblr and we'll be sure to take note.
A Critical Take on Jonah Lehrer
Jonah Lehrer may not have exactly “self-plagiarized” his own work, but he certainly did recycle a good amount of his writing in a misleading way. And while many have criticized this kind of lazy writing, it’s worth revisiting Tim Requarth and Meehan Crist’s critical review of Lehrer’s book, Imagine, which plays a central role in this entire scandal.
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“I guess you could call this ‘fake livetweeting’.”
The latest installment in The Believer’s “What Would Twitter Do?” series (which we’ve mentioned before) features London Review of Books editor Christian Lorentzen, whose Twitter feed, Sheila Heti writes, “seem[s] like what someone who only expresse[s] himself as a fiction writer within the universe of twitter might come up with.” Meanwhile, Heti has a review of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman in (where else?) the LRB.
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Interview With a Bookseller
“We have a customer who eats Bibles. She’s very nice, but she will walk up to a section, rip out a page, and eat it. She much prefers Catholic versions—she won’t touch King James Bibles.” This interview with the owner of Brattle Book Shop in Boston illustrates the peculiar idiosyncrasies of daily bookstore life. For all you romantics out there, here is a love letter to the brick-and-mortar bookstore.
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