There’s a new Ethicist in town. Chuck Klosterman is taking over the NYT advice column, and I’m thinking, gee, I wonder what the author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs knows about ethics. His first column seems pretty legit, but I can’t wait for him to introduce time-travel [pdf] and other hypotheticals.
How ethical are cocoa puffs?
And Hobbes Appears Where, Exactly?
At HTML Giant, Mike Kleine writes a 25-point review of The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. If you need a refresher, you might want to check out our rundown of tiger-based literature.
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Gone but Not Forgotten
"Their relative obscurity is what makes their fans so passionate — these are voices that never quite found the right audience when they were alive." Longreads has a reading list of forgotten women writers, including Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Anita Brookner, whom we profiled in our own pages last year.
On Pain
Recommended Reading: How to write about trauma.
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Danielle Steel Has Had Enough
Ultra-bestselling author Danielle Steel went off recently about something that’s been bothering her for ages. “I think some people are threatened if one is enterprising or has many/varied interests,” she writes. In particular, “it’s about men who don’t like women getting out there, doing something new or innovative and accomplishing something.”
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Brooklyn Book Festival Happenings
New Yorkers: the Brooklyn Book Festival kicks off tomorrow evening, and you can get things started off right with this party hosted by Tumblr, Electric Literature, The LA Review of Books, and The New Inquiry. The following night, however, is when you should carve out some time to see The Greatest 3-Minute Book Stories -- which will feature readings by Maris Kreizman (Slaughterhouse 90210), Alexander Chee (Edinburgh), Dan Wilbur (Better Book Titles), Christopher Beha (On Making Sentences Do Something), and yours truly (these Curiosities) among others.
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The Nobel Will Return in 2019
"These elements of scandal, by now familiar in the #MeToo era, claimed an unusual casualty on Friday: The Nobel Prize in Literature, the world’s most prestigious accolade for writing." In the wake of a sex abuse scandal, The Swedish Academy announced it will postpone this year's award until next year when they will name two winners. In the meantime, maybe we should all mull over the problem with prestigious prizes.