Marilynne Robinson has a new essay (excerpted from her new book When I Was a Child I Read Books) out in Guernica, and if you’re still reading this sentence because you haven’t yet clicked the link, that’s incredible.
New Marilynne!
Ada Lovelace Day
This Tuesday marked the celebration of Ada Lovelace Day, commemorating the world’s first computer programmer (who also happened to be Lord Byron’s daughter). Sydney Padua has published a graphic novel about Lovelace and Charles Babbage, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer. Check out scenes from the story and read more about Lovelace at Brain Pickings.
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Summer Book Sale
New York Review Books is having a Summer Sale, featuring heavily discounted works by Mavis Gallant (who we’ve reviewed and whose books appear in several of our articles), Balzac and many others. There’s even a Bird Lovers’ collection, for anyone wanting to read all about falcons and something called a goshawk.
The Pleasure of Eavesdropping
Recommended Listening: Poet Rachel Zucker has just launched Commonplace, a bi-monthly podcast featuring conversations with poets (and other people) about quotidian objects, experiences, anecdotes, advice, and obsessions.
Too Many Choices
Should you go to grad school? Should you not go to grad school? Should you stop reading trend pieces on going to graduate school?
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“Dying is totally mainstream.”
Millions staffer Mark O’Connell immersed himself in the “transhumanist” movement for more than a year, checking in on such characters as Zoltan Istvan, the quixotic U.S. presidential candidate perhaps best-known for driving a coffin across the country. O’Connell’s book, To Be a Machine, which details dreamers like Istvan envisioning human existence liberated from the outmoded confines of the human body, publishes this month.
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Raven Leilani on Unapologetically Writing Towards Want and Rage
Raven Leilani discusses her desire to write Black women who actively resist conforming to society's preconceptions about them.
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