Get off the internet and read a book. Research has shown that deep reading (slow, immersive reading) is like an exercise for our brains that can enable us to be more empathetic.
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More Illusions
Recommended Listening: Brad Listi’s interview with The Last Illusion author and Millions contributor Porochista Khakpour.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Morris; Backman; Burke; Frank; Rasmussen; Holbert; Harrison; Mapson; Young
Our own Bill Morris has a new novel on shelves this week, which you can learn more about in his recent conversation with our own Edan Lepucki. Also out: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman; Wayfaring Stranger by James Lee Burke; All I Love and Know by Judith Frank; Evergreen by Rebecca Rasmussen; The Hour of Lead by Bruce Holbert; The Spark and the Drive by Wayne Harrison; Owen’s Daughter by Jo-Ann Mapson; and Season to Taste by Natalie Young.
Pulp Saint
From The Atlantic comes the case for canonizing G.K. Chesterton, the “Catholic convert and an oracular man of letters, a pneumatic cultural presence, an aphorist with the production rate of a pulp novelist.”
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Wanting to Be White
“How easy for the waterfall to turn back / into the river, the long, silent face / holding all that has passed through it / as though untouched…” A new poem from Charif Shanahan at Lit Hub, “Wanting to Be White,” forces the audience “to reconsider poetics and race, distinct yet indivisible in the American grain.” Not a fan of poetry? Check out our list of ten poems for people who hate poetry.
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Thomas Pynchon to Publish New Novel
Washington Post critic Ron Charles broke the news today that Thomas Pynchon will have a new book out from Penguin this fall called Bleeding Edge. Charles said the news was confirmed by two Penguin employees and that “everything is tentative” at this time.
Sarah M. Broom on Seeking Out Intellectual Boundlessness
Sarah M. Broom discusses the importance of allowing Black writers — especially women — to write with a sense of boundlessness.
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Sarah Kasbeer on Writing About Trauma
Sarah Kasbeer on her debut essay collection, A Woman, a Plan, an Outline of a Man, and how much of a role writing plays in processing trauma.
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Lincoln vs. Hitler
“Adolf Hitler loved books—that nasty bent for book burning notwithstanding—and the book industry loves him back. Type his name into Amazon, and while he doesn’t trigger the English-language numbers of Jesus (186,740) or Lincoln (70,710), he registers a solid 18,597—a stunning figure for someone who died less than 70 years ago.” On the Fuhrer’s paradoxical relationship with literature.