Science now confirms what’s long been suspected by people related to theater kids: “the quality of a performance does not drive the amount of applause an audience gives.”
A(n Induced) Standing Ovation
What About Your Head?
“None of us made love, we had only reproaches for one another. I hated that dependency and yet I couldn’t live without it.” This short piece by Mercè Rodoreda from the new issue of Harper’s Magazine is brutal and surprising. The piece is an excerpt from Rodoreda’s War, So Much War, out later this month.
“A Native Son” in Ferguson
“It is early August. A black man is shot by a white policeman. And the effect on the community is of “a lit match in a tin of gasoline.” No, this is not Ferguson, MO.” Laila Lalami reports for NPR on rereading James Baldwin‘s Notes of a Native Son in the context of Ferguson. Pair with Teju Cole‘s essay in The New Yorker about rereading Baldwin’s “Stranger in the Village.”
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The Best Case for Cloning
A 27 pound lobster has been caught off the coast of Maine. Now, who’s going to be the first to come up with a 50 pound dab of butter?
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“My school was on fire.”
Recommended Reading: Everything being written by Delaney Nolan – the most recent example of which being “I Was a Teenage Arsonist.”
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New Hosseini Novel
Khaled Hosseini, author of both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, has a new book coming out next May. And the Mountains Echoed will be “a multigenerational novel revolving around not just parents and children but brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers”
Wednesday Links
From icy Philadelphia, some links to start the day:The latest round at the LBC is over, but we’ve posted our nominees for the next round. Read the books now so you can discuss them with us in a month or so. I was a nominator this round and my pick is The Cottagers by Marshall N. Klimasewiski.An Ask Metafilter thread on books by women for men who don’t like books by women. Lots of good recommendations… Might do a separate “booklist” post here at some point compiling all those suggestions.Dan Wickett’s Dzanc Books has two more titles on the way, one by Yannick Murphy who wrote LBC nominee Here They Come and one by Wickett fave Peter Markus (who he mentioned in his 2006 best of here at The Millions.)Combining Garfield and reference books seems like a bad idea. Note: A groundbreaking work in that it is the “1st dictionary with attitude” (via)
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The Nobel Will Return in 2019
“These elements of scandal, by now familiar in the #MeToo era, claimed an unusual casualty on Friday: The Nobel Prize in Literature, the world’s most prestigious accolade for writing.” In the wake of a sex abuse scandal, The Swedish Academy announced it will postpone this year’s award until next year when they will name two winners. In the meantime, maybe we should all mull over the problem with prestigious prizes.