New this week is Marilynne Robinson’s collection of essays When I Was a Child I Read Books. Also out are Arcadia by Lauren Groff, The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits, and The Reconstructionist by Nick Arvin. Finally, the collected writings of the late and beloved critic John Leonard, Reading for My Life, is now out.
Tuesday New Release Day: Robinson, Groff, Julavits, Arvin, Leonard
“a video a lone a last a loved a long the / riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s”
Open Culture dug up the only known recordings of James Joyce reading his own work. Maybe Finnegans Wake will make a bit more sense to you when you hear its thunderwords spoken out loud.
“This ghoulish treasure trove”
At one time considered to be the work of demons or incubi, sleep paralysis – the “transition state between wakefulness and rest characterized by complete muscle atonia” – has since become accepted as a well-documented and not very uncommon phenomenon. Still, “the experience can be terrifying,” writes Karen Emslie in her recent piece about making the best of the condition.
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Hollywood Takes on the Business Book
Andrew Ross Sorkin’s financial crisis post mortem Too Big to Fail is slated to get the Hollywood treatment. Curtis Hanson will direct the likes of Paul Giamatti as Ben Bernanke, James Woods as Dick Fuld, and Billy Crudup as Timothy Geithner. (Thanks, Derek)
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The Station Fire in Pictures
A selection of jaw-dropping photos from the LA Times of the Station fire in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles, the largest wildfire in the LA area in modern history.
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Rebecca Returns
Last night I dreamt they made a film about Manderley again.
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Dispatch from Brazil
Recommended Reading: Selections from the forthcoming Women Writing Brazil issue of PEN America’s Glossolalia.
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The Cat in the Hat
“Ted has another peculiar hobby — that of collecting hats of every description.” Art imitated life for Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, hat collector extraordinaire.