At the LRB, Jonathan Coe reviews The Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson, a book that delves into the satirical gold mine that is the Mayor of London.
Oh Boris
A Zombie Meets a Snake
Recommended Reading: Over at Harper’s, Anne Carson describes what happens when a zombie meets a snake, in her first published short story.
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Not Like Us
Recommended Reading: David Shewan on racism in modern Britain.
Oratory Passion
The best Fourth of July speech? Frederick Douglass delivered it on July 5, 1852. Pair with a reading list for July.
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Stellar Memoir
Maclean’s has an excerpt from Chris Hadfield’s forthcoming memoir, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth.
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Building Up
It’s fitting that Ray Bradbury credited his interest in architecture to an H.G. Wells story he read when he was five. At The Paris Review Daily, a previously unpublished essay by the author, who says his career in architecture started when he noticed there was no plaque at the residence of Sherlock Holmes. Related: Tanjil Rashid on Bradbury’s connection to the Middle East.
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Place to Place
“Now the lattice that connects us is digitally immediate we travel all the more, but we’ve lost this thrill of adventure. It’s oddly touching to read a novel where journeys are so inherently exciting, and it makes the book both consummately funny and poignantly elegiac.” On the novel Changing Places by David Lodge.
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“Godfather? Me?”
Recommended Reading: “The Loneliness of Certain American States” by Catherine Lacey.