Can Galileo’s literary preferences teach us about “the unusual and creative features of his physics?” John L. Heilbron thinks so.
Galileo’s Taste; Galileo’s Work; Galileo’s Life
Thirty Princes
In every country except France, the copyright for The Little Prince expired at the end of last year, which explains why Turkish publishers chose the first two weeks of January to publish a huge number of new translations of the book. At the LRB blog, Millions contributor Kaya Genc writes about the flood of new editions, remarking on the significance of a passage about a Turkish astronomer.
Crystal Methods
Curtis Sittenfeld did some interesting research for her latest novel, Sisterland. "I went to this New Age bookstore in a distant suburb of St. Louis. I basically went there and was like, 'I’m doing research,' and then I un-ironically bought some crystals," she told The Rumpus.
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The Great Terry Castle
"Much of what passes for advanced literary scholarship these days is dreadful twaddle -- incoherent, emotionally empty, deeply illiterate," says Terry Castle in a recent interview with Salon about her new book of essays, The Professor. You can also catch Castle in the most recent issue of The New York Times Magazine.
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Two Tumblrs Worth Seeing
Consider these two Tumblrs as late additions to my three-part (one, two, three) taxonomy of literary blogs. Writers at Work is three years in the making, so we're a bit late to the party, but Erasing Infinite, which creates erasure poems out of each page of Infinite Jest, looks like it’s got a long way to go before it’s finished.
Magical Thinking
After five years, Lev Grossman has released the final book in his Magicians trilogy, aptly reviewed in the Sunday Times by our own Edan Lepucki. At Slate, the Awl cofounder, Year in Reading alum and novelist Choire Sicha looks back on the series as a whole. After reading through all three entries, Choire poses a simple but hard-to-answer question: is main character Quentin truly the central figure of the books? It might also be a good time to read our interview with Grossman.
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“Dear Son.”
Recommended Viewing: “The Mysterious Arrival of an Unusual Letter,” which is a Scott Wenner film based on a poem by Mark Strand.