From the person who brought you Infinite Boston comes Infinite Atlas, an interactive map of the places that make up Infinite Jest, and, for the truely devoted, the Infinite Map, a framable print version of that atlas. Page-Turner offers an extended preview of D.T. Max’s Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story. Maria Popova highlights a few of the signature DFW words that he adopted from his mother.
DFW Roundup
When Life Gives You Rob Ford, What More Do You Require?
PSA: Little Brother is releasing a special issue entitled Everything Is Fine. The kicker? The issue is dedicated to fiction about embattled Toronto mayor Rob Ford. (P.S. If you aren’t familiar with LB, it’s the magazine run by Millions Tumblr-er emeritus Emily M. Keeler.)
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None Found Here
Not sure what’s honest and what’s not in your life? Then consult Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit, which handily lays out seven tools for identifying bad ideas. The astronomer also provided a list of common fallacies in his 1995 book, The Demon-Haunted World.
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A Borrowing Boom
“Between 1990 and 2014, visits to public libraries grew by a whopping 181%. For context, the population of the United States increased by 28% during that period.” Why the library boom? (via The Digital Reader) See also this paean by Daniel Penev in our own pages,“The Library Is Dead. Long Live the Library!”
Jane Austen’s Wrath
Jane Austen is probably mad at us. Amy Watkin tells us why at McSweeney’s.
The Belletristic Branch
At the Poetry Foundation’s website, a list of twelve poets that captivated American presidents.
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Why so Serious?
Jonathan Lethem thinks his work is taken too seriously. "Well, I was just watching Richard Pryor, and he says, 'When you’re dating a white woman, and people don’t like it, you can’t really pretend. You can’t go, "Oh, she’s not with me."' 'You write the big, ambitious books, right?' Well, I guess they are," he said in an interview with Salon. He also discusses being equated with Jonathan Franzen and his new novel, Dissident Gardens.
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It Came From The Internet to Destroy My Productivity!
Now you, too, can create vintage pulp novel covers with the best of ‘em.
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