Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch AKA MCA has died at 47, due to cancer. Pitchfork has more.
RIP MCA
Kitty Lit
If you find cat hair in a book you checked out of the Novorossiysk Library, don’t worry. It belongs to the newest librarian. Kuzya the cat started off as a pet at the Russian library but was promoted after patronage increased due to his presence. The new library assistant even wears a bow tie.
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Rachel Kushner and the Costa Concordia
Recommended reading: Rachel Kushner writes about the Costa Concordia disaster, cruise ships in general, and her own short-lived “aspiration to spend time at sea as requisite literary training” for The London Review of Books.
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On Ruined Pianos and Literary Fêtes
The Paris Review will soon move into a new office space, and while preparing for the relocation, some staffers discovered “a batch of small, white booklets” entitled “The Paris Review: Twenty Year Index, Issues 1-56.” The lists seemed to indicate everything that had been published in the magazine during its first 23 years of existence, and they also featured an introduction from founder George Plimpton – an introduction, by the way, that really depicts the Review of old better than any photograph ever could.
Looking for America
Recommended Viewing: Photographer Alec Soth and writer Brad Zellar’s LBM Dispatch, “an irregularly published newspaper of the North American ramblings.” The New Yorker has a gallery of 14 of Soth’s haunting photos that capture the fleeting spirit of America.
Tatjana Soli on Paul Yoon
In The New York Times, Tatjana Soli gives high praise to Snow Hunters, the first novel by Once the Shore author and Best American Short Stories alumnus Paul Yoon. The novel, which tells the tale of a North Korean refugee named Yohan, proves that Yoon is “well-suited to the short form,” she writes. (Related: Soli has written for us.)
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Wise and Beautiful
As you might expect, this grammar quiz targeted at eighth-graders from 1912 will make you feel depressed about the modern age. (h/t The Paris Review Daily)
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Selling Marxism
An extremely rare copy of Karl Marx‘s Das Kapital sold at auction for $51,739 this past month. That’s more than five times as much as this extremely rare copy of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
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An unscratchable itch
After reviewing a selection of new books on Godlessness, self-described disappointed disbeliever Christopher Beha wonders if literature can fill the spiritual voids of atheism. Our own Garth Risk Hallberg also investigated a slew of New Atheist books just last year.