Christopher Ketcham takes Harper’s readers through the “antimonopolist history” of Monopoly, “the world’s most popular board game.”
Do Not Pass Go.
A Look at J.K. Rowling
The Casual Vacancy, the first novel for adults by J.K. Rowling, is already breaking records for the highest number of preorders this year. To whet your appetite for the book’s release on Thursday, check out Ian Parker‘s new profile in The New Yorker.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald on YouTube
F. Scott Fitzgerald reads from Othello (via The Missouri Review), John Keats, and John Masefield.
And Also With You
We’ve heard a lot about “Cool Pope” Francis in the past few weeks. For a take on the Vatican that’s a bit different from the usual fare, check out this piece from the London Review of Books on the pontiff’s battle against corruption among the cardinals in Rome.
Miéville in Conversation
China Miéville recorded a podcast with Lapham’s Quarterly editor Aidan Flax-Clark.
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“O Warbling Beauty!”
“It can be difficult to talk about Uzbek without soaring into Orientalist flights. ‘O warbling beauty of the steppe!’ I started to write, like a 19th-century lady traveler.” Our own Lydia Kiesling is in the New York Times writing about studying Uzbek and speaking Turkish.
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Bailouts and Bulgakov: On Russian Publishing
Since 2010, Russian publishing professionals estimate that “as many as 20% of [all] Russian book stores have closed.” Each year, they fear, the number of “dedicated readers in Russia declines by 2%.” To remedy these trends, the Russian government has recently approved a $100 million stimulus package for the nation’s book industry – running the gamut from investment in new bookstores, to tax incentives for small presses, and also to more international book fairs – to be dispersed through 2018. Recently, Emily Parker noted in The New York Times that Russia’s literary problems might be blamed on its lack of “good protest literature.”
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