Leave it to the Oxford English Dictionary folks to put a damper on the linsane amount of eponyms based on Jeremy Lin’s surname.
Linguistics
The Price of Black Ambition
“I have come to realize how much I have, throughout my life, bought into the narrative of this alluring myth of personal responsibility and excellence. I realize how much I believe that all good things will come if I—if we—just work hard enough.” Year in Reading alum Roxane Gay writes for VQR Online about “The Price of Black Ambition.” Pair with our review of An Untamed State.
Stephen FryTube
Some kind soul has uploaded all of Stephen Fry’s QI (Quite Interesting) to YouTube. Enjoy.
●
●
Lend Me Talent
Last Friday marked the feast day of Francis de Sales, better known as the patron saint of writers and journalists. The saint, who lived in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, got his title thanks to his propensity for using flyers and pamphlets to convert people to Catholicism. At The Paris Review Daily, Dan Piepenbring reads the saint’s most famous work, Introduction to the Devout Life.
●
●
Not What You Said Before
Hypocrisy is a funny thing. In theory, we all dislike it, seeing an ability to live by one’s own morals as a virtue in itself, but the fact that everybody breaks their own rules from time to time means that our aversion to hypocrisy is a little bit… hypocritical. On the Harper’s blog, Clancy Martin dissects the meaning of the fact that “we’re all hypocrites.”
●
●
Donald J. Sobol Passed Away
Donald J. Sobol, author of the Encyclopedia Brown series, passed away last week at age 87.
●
●
A Truly Author-itative Map
Geoff Sawers has designed maps detailing the rich literary landscapes of the United States, England, and Wales.
●
●