“Not long ago The New York Times featured a story about a Brazilian motel for dogs—to promote amorous canine liasons—that also sold nonalcoholic dog beer, had a Japanese ofuro soaking tub, and lots of branded dog apparel.” The current state of man’s best friend.
Writer’s Best Friend
A Fine Art
“Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.” It’s too bad more people haven’t had a chance to take a look at Carl Sagan’s 8-rule “Baloney Detection Kit.“
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Lot by Lot
Valeria Luiselli has a new novel coming out, and BOMB has an exclusive excerpt. Titled “Hyperbolics,” it juxtaposes the goings-on at a church auction with descriptions of items on offer, which steadily grow macabre. You might want to check out her first novel after reading it to get some context.
What Kind
At Boston Review, check out a new poem from Maggie Nelson. At The Millions, Leslie Jamison includes Nelson’s Bluets and The Art of Cruelty in A Year in Reading.
Nerd Jeopardy Happened and Our Correspondent Was There
Presenting the second installment of our Tumblr’s newest feature, #LitBeat, which offers coverage of literary events.
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Fathers and Daughters
A writer in her own right, Sybille Lacan reflects on her experience as the daughter of famous psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. She writes, “Father, for our birthdays, would give us superb gifts (I believe it took me far too long to understand it was not he who had picked them out).”
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Class Notes
This week, the Ransom Center at UT-Austin opened up its archives of the works of J.M. Coetzee. Because the Nobel Prize winner is an alumnus, he says it’s “a privilege to have graduated from being a teaching assistant at The University of Texas to being one of the authors whose papers are conserved here.” (Fun fact: his starting salary was $2,300 a year.)
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B Is for Bigotry
“I mostly find it sad. I understand that super religious people would not be there supporting it, but to go the extra mile to fight it when you could just not come kinda shocked me!” The Huffington Post reports on Brandon James, a drag performer whose plans to read to kids about acceptance at a North Carolina public library were scuttled after some of its patrons complained. We suppose the march of progress is never neat (via Book Riot).
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Embracing the Mysteries in Beverly Cleary’s Ramona Quimby Books
Adrienne Raphel looks back at Beverly Cleary's beloved Ramona Quimby series, and notes that the books are riddled with odd discrepancies that are both puzzling and charming.
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