“Hypothetical representation of a language”

Two months after the last Borders store closed its doors, Business Week takes an in depth look at the reasons for its demise.

Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Neil Strauss warns readers about the “insidious evils of ‘like’ culture.” Was he in the audience for Jonathan Franzen‘s May 21 commencement speech at Kenyon College?

Used-book search aggregator BookFinder.com has published its annual report on the most sought-after out-of-print books. As always, the lists are eclectic, spanning everything from stock market conspiracy theories to a lost work by Edward Gorey. (Thanks, Laurie)

New this week is Joshua Cohen’s Four New Messages, while John Banville (writing as Benjamin Black) is out with Vengeance. Also new on shelves: Aftermath, a memoir by Rachel Cusk; Peter Heller’s post-apocalyptic debut novel The Dog Stars; David Gillham’s novel of WWII Berlin, City of Women; and In the Shadow of the Banyan, Vaddey Ratner’s novel set in the Cambodia of the Khmer Rouge. Out in paperback are Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son and Edie Meidav’s Lola, California.

1. The listicle is “the house style of a distracted culture.”

2. Our own Mark O’Connell writes about the ubiquitous form for The New Yorker.

3. And fittingly, he writes about it in a list.