Recommended Reading: John F. Kennedy’s 1960 essay, “The Soft American,” in which the president warns us about “an increasingly large number of young Americans who are neglecting their bodies.”
JFK on the Decline of Physical Fitness
James Franco + n+1
It’s time for another literary James Franco sighting. This time he’s popping up in the table of contents for the next issue of n+1.
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The Men Who Stare at Goats
What would the child of The Big Lebowski characters The Dude (Jeff Bridges) and Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) look like? Maybe like Lt. Col. Django (Bridges, again), one of the characters in Grant Heslov‘s The Men Who Stare at Goats, set to release in November, a comedy about the U.S. military’s attempt to train psychic soldiers (based on the book by Jon Ronson).
Jane Austen Goes Electric
Helen Lewis looks at how recent film and TV adaptations of Jane Austen books serve surprising, acerbic takes on the author's well-known works.
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Poems in Extremity
Recommended reading: Sean Singer reviews Poetry of Witness for The Rumpus and calls for readers to see “poems as ethical and political act[s] in the face of extremity.” Pair with selections from editor Carolyn Forché‘s essay on 20th century poetry of witness.
Clickbait Lit
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Who Reviews the Reviewers?
Our own Lydia Kiesling discusses James Wood’s literary “lodestars,” and also looks at “what is fascinating, if not exactly fun” about The Fun Stuff, the critic’s latest essay collection.
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