Year in Reading alum Susan Orlean’s next book will be entitled The Library Book. It will be “a love letter to an endangered institution, exploring their history, their people, their meaning and their future as they adapt and redefine themselves in a digital world.” The book will focus in particular on the unsolved 1986 razing of the Los Angeles Central Library.
Susan Orlean’s Library Book
Necessary Nabokov
Christopher Michel discusses The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov – a book that challenges the long-held consensus that Nabokov was merely an aesthete.
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The case against writing manuals
In The Atlantic, Richard Bausch makes a case against writing manuals: “The trouble of course is that a good book is not something you can put together like a model airplane.”
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Packer on Afghanistan
Another hip-hip for long-form journalism. George Packer‘s piece in the New Yorker on Richard Holbrooke and the Af-Pak War reminds one that some things — complicated geopolitical matters, for example — must be explored at length. Subscribers can read the full article in the digital edition here. Short of that, read Packer’s assessment of the McChrystal Report on his blog.
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The Real Racist
One thing that pretty much everyone can agree on is that Go Set a Watchman is a controversial book. Our own Michael Bourne said it “fails as a work of art in every way except as a corrective to the standard sentimental reading of Atticus Finch.” At Slate, Dan Kois, Meghan O’Rourke and Katy Waldman debate the main questions the novel raised.
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Henry Miller: Asleep and Awake
The documentary about Tropic of Cancer author Henry Miller, Asleep and Awake (NSFW), was filmed almost entirely in Mr. Miller’s bathroom. The filmmakers, according to the folks at Open Culture, “use[d] these bathroom walls as a gateway into his mind.”
Next Step: Skynet Becomes Self-Aware
James Harriman-Smith wants to know what humans can learn from a computer’s reading of Shakespeare’s plays. As it turns out, there’s quite a bit.
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Shondaland’s Fall Reading Recommendations
Meet Shondaland, a new website created by Shonda Rhimes and dedicated to storytelling that launched this week. One of their most recent posts highlights 28 books to read this fall. We know there’s a lot of reading recommendation lists around this time of year (like our September preview) but we appreciate the diversity of this list in particular and its willingness to hold back judgment if we don’t finish all the suggestions. Pair with our interview with Jesmyn Ward (whose Sing, Unburied Sing made the list), along with Year in Reading alum Eleanor Henderson’s Twelve Mile Straight.
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