The Summer Olympics begin in exactly one month, so I recommend checking out this 52-minute American Experience episode on Olympic legend Jesse Owens to set the tone.
American Experience: Jesse Owens
Dead Poets Society
A look at famous authors' gravestones.
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Bard Bloomberg
Mayor Mike Bloomberg: billionaire, philanthropist, corn syrup’s nemesis, and… poet?
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The Price of Black Ambition
“I have come to realize how much I have, throughout my life, bought into the narrative of this alluring myth of personal responsibility and excellence. I realize how much I believe that all good things will come if I—if we—just work hard enough.” Year in Reading alum Roxane Gay writes for VQR Online about “The Price of Black Ambition.” Pair with our review of An Untamed State.
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Woody Allen’s Favorite Books
The ever-irreverent Woody Allen weighs in on his all-time faves, among other things. A Catcher in the Rye unsurprisingly makes the list, as do more obscure picks like The World of SJ Perelman.
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“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”
Continuing Tin House’s great “The Art of The Sentence” series, Vishwas Gaitonde dives deep into the opening line from Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. (Come on, we all know the one.) Be sure to catch Tin House's previous TAoTS series installments as well.
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Bad Education: The Confessions of Ed Dante
At The Chronicle of Higher Education: A breathtakingly ballsy piece by an anonymous professional writer of academic papers -- friend to non-native speakers, the rich and lazy, and the hopelessly dim. Whatever your professor wants, he delivers (for a fee, of course). This Ed Dante might remind you of Vitaly Borker, the charmingly unapologetic (and equally ballsy) thug internet retailer profiled by David Segal in the NYTimes a few weeks back.
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In Memoriam: Gordon Willis
Gordon Willis, the celebrated cinematographer who worked on The Godfather films and Annie Hall, passed away Sunday at the age of 82. The Paris Review has posted a short "In Memoriam," which serves as both a wonderful introduction to the work of this artist and a knowing celebration of his work, complete with a video of Manhattan's bridge scene and an interview with Willis himself.