My review of Tom Bissell‘s Magic Hours appears in this Sunday’s NYTBR.
Appearing Elsewhere
The Billionaire is Dead…
At long last, a viable alternative to Mike Bloomberg and Bill Thompson has entered the NYC mayoral race. This candidate’s “zero tolerance anti-hipster policy” is certainly worth a look.
●
●
Paranoid Much?
At The Awl, Brian O’Neill makes the case that following the events of September 11th, America finally caught up to the mindset of Thomas Pynchon.
Dead Sea SEOS
Google is pairing up with the Israel Antiquities Authority to put ancient manuscripts, such as the book of Genesis, online.
●
●
Eating And/Or Reading
“The joy of reading about the meals of others shows that, in many ways, we are simple creatures: by merely looking upon someone else eating we can feel better fed.” In the New Yorker, Bee Wilson considers the “Pleasures of the Literary Meal,” something Seth Sawyers wrote about for the Millions last year.
●
●
Outraged over Outrage
When did Twitter turn into a place of public shame, outrage, and apology? Alexander Chee examines the changing culture in an essay for Dame Magazine. “Oh, Internet, place of the ultimate writerly paradox, where things you write quickly for little or no money last forever.” Our own Mark O’Connell explored something similar in his New Yorker essay on the public humiliation of regrettable tweets.
●
●
Cather People
For The New Yorker Alex Ross describes the role Nebraska’s prairies played in Willa Cather’s writing, his encounters with Cather people, and how he became one himself. “From this roughshod Europe of the mind, Cather also emerged with a complex understanding of American identity. Her symphonic landscapes are inflected with myriad accents, cultures, personal narratives—all stored away in a prodigious memory. “
The Return of Binge Reading
Novelist Ben Dolnick makes the case for indulging in a good binge-reading session.
●
●
●
The Rebellious English Major
In last week’s Brandeis commencement speech, Leon Wieseltier argued that never has there been a moment in American life when the humanities were respected less but needed more. “In recent years I have come to regard a commitment to the humanities as nothing less than an act of intellectual defiance, of cultural dissidence,” he said.
●
●