Thanks to Stephen Elliot‘s Letters in the Mail project, LARB senior editor Matthew Specktor finds himself admiring the gorgeous handwriting of strangers, feeling tickled and gobsmacked, and reflecting on letter writing as something “beautifully useless to do.”
Dear Matthew Specktor
Rise Up
“Our culture has focused so much attention on the most visible members of the Black Panthers that it has been easy to forget it was a nationwide organization — an entity that needed to attract ordinary people who believed in something and were also willing to work for it.” In the Times, Rembert Browne reviews two new books about the Black Power movement.
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Glamour’s Page 194 Girl
At Glamour‘s blog, the fashion magazine shot heard round the world: a nude photo of a girl who–gasp!–wears a size 12 and doesn’t have a six-pack. And, she looks happy. Apparently, this is what readers of fashion magazines have been waiting for.
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The Best New Underground Literary Magazines
From The Independent, the best of the new breed of underground literary magazines to fit into that “empty slot on the bookshelf between your pristine copies of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and Granta.”
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A Brief History of Library Theft
From 400-year-old bibles to John F. Kennedy's rocking chair, library thieves have stolen countless artifacts over the years.
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Hunger Games on a Lean Budget
Skip the overpriced coffee today and treat yourself to the entire Hunger Games trilogy (on Kindle) for the low, low price of $5.
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Medvedev’s America
Kirill Medvedev’s “America: A Prophecy” has been published for Triple Canopy as part of the “Immaterial Literature” project. The suite, translated by n+1 editor Keith Gessen, is composed of pieces from the Russian poet’s forthcoming It’s No Good collection.
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Emily Gould’s Favorite Memoirs
Emily Gould, author of the new memoir And the Heart Says Whatever, lists the best memoirs ever at the Daily Beast: “A few themes run throughout: druggy, decadent bohemia, forbidden or strange sex, art, and power, and, um, cooking.”
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