Just in time for crawfish season (and ruined outfits as a result of crawfish season), The Oxford American‘s launched its newest column, Parish Chic, brought to you by L. Kasimu Harris. It’s meant to prominently showcase the beaucoup styles on display in New Orleans, Harris’ hometown. You can read about the project’s background and inspiration over at Gambit: The Best of New Orleans.
Haute Bayou
Literary Destinations
Over at The Week, Jeva Lange recommends books based on where your travels are taking you this summer. For other recommended reading, don’t miss our Great Second-Half Book Preview.
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The E-Reader and Tablet Tidal Wave
Pew Internet finds that tablet and e-reader ownership nearly doubled over the holiday gift-giving period 29% of Americans now own at least one of these digital reading devices. Meanwhile, the content producers keep rushing in, with NBC Universal launching an e-book arm and Apple’s textbook scheme netting 350,000 downloads in three days.
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Finding “the fountainhead of the humanities”
Tracing the biological origins of aesthetics, Harvard Professor E.O. Wilson argues for a tighter bond between the humanities and the sciences and identifies the metaphor as the wedge that will keep them forever divided.
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Leave Elena Alone
We can’t stop gobbling up Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, but we also won’t stop asking who Elena Ferrante really is. Why do we need to know the author’s true identity, asks Electric Literature? (Our own Michael Schaub revealed that he was Elena Ferrante earlier this year.)
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Coeur de Pirate: Quebecoise Charm School
If you haven’t already, meet Coeur de Pirate, the beautiful and charming Quebec singer-songwriter Béatrice Martin. Her sound’s somewhere between Françoise Hardy and Icelandic band Seabear. Here’s the video for “Comme des Enfants” and here’s a fan-made video for “Printemps” (my favorite C de P song).
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Building Covers
Year in Reading alumnus Chris Ware drew the cover of this week’s New Yorker. (If you liked his latest, Building Stories, you might like reading our review.)
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