Jane Hu’s short history of the book review.
Plenty of excuse for putting it on.
In A New York Epoch
Maria Popova investigates Teresa Carpenter’s new anthology, New York Diaries: 1609 to 2009, and includes some wonderful excerpts and photographs.
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New Helen DeWitt
Millions fave Helen DeWitt’s new novel Lightning Rods now has a cover and is available for pre-order. Look for it in October.
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Not Evil
Recommended reading: Sara Polsky writes for the New Yorker about “The Detective Novel That Convinced a Generation Richard III Wasn’t Evil.”
Gaining Experience
At Full-Stop, Eric Jett reflects on the wisdom of a possibly apocryphal commandment by Mark Twain: “Never argue with stupid people.”
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Legendary Lovers
Recommended Reading: Becca Rothfeld on courtship and gender roles in Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji, a classic work of Japanese literature written at the turn of the eleventh century.
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Cormac McCopyEditor
Cormac McCarthy helped copy edit Lawrence M. Krauss’s Quantum Man, a biography of the physicist Richard Feynman. But, seriously, can anyone prove it wasn’t really McCarthy’s Yelp review doppelgänger?