J.K. Rowling loves Robert F. Kennedy. She revealed on her website that she chose the pseudonym Robert Galbraith after Kennedy and her childhood alias, Ella Galbraith. “I can only hope all the real Robert Galbraiths out there will be as forgiving as the real Harry Potters have been. I must say, I don’t think their plight is quite as embarrassing,” she wrote.
Kennedy Curse
Ireland’s Debt; Debt to Ireland
John Jeremiah Sullivan writes about heritage, history, literature, and the Emerald Isle in this piece for The New York Times Magazine, “My Debt to Ireland.” In the essay, Sullivan talks about the Aran Islands, and in particular Dún Aonghasa. On our Tumblr, I’ve shared some photos I took at the place.
Neuroscience and Creativity
Over at Bloom, Dr. Francine Toder—a retired psychotherapist and author of The Vintage Years, who learned to play the cello in her 60s—writes about the neuroscience studies that support creative blooming in later life. Check out also this excerpt from The Vintage Years.
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Teach Yourself Italian
Recommended Reading: This essay by Jhumpa Lahiri on language and translation, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein. Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for her collection of stories The Interpreter of Maladies.
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Two-fer from Kiš
Serbian writer Danilo Kiš, recently profiled by Sam Sacks, has two short pieces up on the Bomb! website.
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“In Argentina, it’s better to keep your mouth shut.”
Seven years ago, a stolen copy of Jorge Luis Borges’s Fervor de Buenos Aires was finally returned to Argentina’s National Library. But was it the same copy that had been taken fifteen years prior?
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The Therapy Fads
“We learn how to be mad, the same way we learn how to be male or female, or how we learn how to participate in society.” On fads and mental illness.
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Alexandre Dumas in the Kitchen
Most people know Alexandre Dumas for The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, but fewer people are aware of what he considered his masterwork: Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine.
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