Some amateur biologists are at work replacing lamps with bio-luminescent trees and flowers, reports Andrew Pollack for The New York Times. Meanwhile South Korean scientists have barking up an entirely different tree for the past two years. (I’m sorry for the pun; here’s an image of a glowing beagle to make amends.)
The Trees! They’re Glowing!
Serializing in the Digital Age II
City of Quartz author Mike Davis is writing a biography of the Los Angeles Times' bygone publisher Harrison Gray Otis. Appropriately, the installments will be serialized by the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Tuesday New Release Day: Alameddine; Palacio; Semple; Lianke; French; Chang; Zink
New this week: The Angel of History by Rabih Alameddine; The Mortifications by Derek Palacio; Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple; The Explosion Chronicles by Yan Lianke; The Trespasser by Tana French; The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang; and Nicotine by Nell Zink. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half 2016 Book Preview.
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Chosen One Narratives
Rainbow Rowell’s newest book, Carry On, is out now. Here she is interviewed by Nicole Chung over at The Toast. Our own Janet Potter has a moving essay on Rowell and young love that may also be of interest to you.
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Mad, Bad, and Healthy to Know
"It was spring. Byron was leaving England forever, a cloud of infamy hanging over him. (He is one of the few people you can write something like that about and have it be true; that is part of why he's so satisfying.)" Via The Awl: the adventures of John Polidori, literary vampire and doctor to Lord Byron.
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Personals, for the Bookish
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Once Upon A Time
Ignore films like Memento when writing, Steve Almond argues, and instead focus on old-fashioned devices like narrative, plot, and character development.
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E-Romance Me
There are millions of pieces out there about how dating is the worst. This one from Alexandra Schwartz at The New Yorker which questions whether dating in the 21st century is even worth the effort is, if nothing else, worth the effort it takes to read.