Amazon has announced that all seven Harry Potter books will be available via its Kindle Lending Library starting on June 19th.
Borrow Harry Potter Electronically
Send In the Clowns
Coulrophobes take heed! You’re not scared of clowns because they’re inherently dark, or even because you caught a few minutes of Stephen King’s IT on television. In fact, you probably owe your fear of clowns to a fellow named Joseph Grimaldi, the “Homo erectus of clown evolution.” When this progenitor died in 1837, a young Charles Dickens “was charged with editing his memoirs.” The resulting portrait, relays Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, was what ultimately “water[ed] the seeds in popular imagination of the scary clown.”
The Singer’s Gun on the Indie Next Highlights List
Congratulations to our very own Emily St. John Mandel, whose second novel, The Singer’s Gun, is included, along with 19 other books, in the 2010 Indie Next List Highlights. Jason Hafer of Wolfgang Books says: “The Singer’s Gun is a taut, restrained book with a quick hook and a long pull. It is a moving and mysterious work, wholly authentic.”
Saving Civilization Through Stories With Kazuo Ishiguro
Light as a Feather
“We can work harder to mourn, get better at it, connect it better to how we live, how we care for people, how we educate people. It’s politics, for me.” ZYZZYVA interviews Max Porter about his Grief Is the Thing with Feathers. Pair with Lidia Yuknavitch’s Millions essay on grief and art.
Ould Soul
You may have heard that the actor Peter O’Toole passed away in London on Saturday. As a tribute, Longform republished a 1963 profile of O’Toole by Gay Talese, who accompanied the Lawrence of Arabia star on a trip to Ireland.
The Rules of Drinking and Writing
Geoff Nicholson of the New York Times compares the rules of drinking and the rules of writing in light of the recent reissue of famous cocktail guide The Hour (with a new introduction by Daniel Handler, otherwise known as Lemony Snicket).