You might have heard that “twerk” (among other words) has been added to the Oxford Dictionaries Online. But you probably didn’t hear Morgan Freeman reading the definition aloud.
Twerking with Morgan Freeman
Mapping the Territory
"No map can be a perfect representation of reality; every map is an interpretation, which may be why writers are so drawn to them," Casey N. Cep writes about the fictional map at The New Yorker. Pair with: Our review of Where You Are.
Interview with A.S. Byatt
Guardian posts an interesting video interview with A.S. Byatt about poetry, her novel The Children's Book, and our persistent interest in ourselves.
Mary Ruefle Reads Her Work
Listen to Mary Ruefle read two of her poems over at The Poetry Foundation: “White Buttons” and “Shalimar.”
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Sell! Sell! Sell! (And Write, Too!)
Moleskine, the company responsible for the iconic writing pads favored by Ernest Hemingway and Vincent Van Gogh, is planning to launch a public stock offering next September.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Rash, Evenson, Sontag, Wallace
New this week are Ron Rash's The Cove, Brian Evenson's Immobility, and Volume Two of Susan Sontag's Journals (all books highlighted in our January preview). Out in paperback this week is David Foster Wallace's The Pale King, from which we recently ran a previously unpublished excerpt.
Making Connections
Books by Friends, a semi-regular feature at The Atlantic, sees writer James Fallows recommend the works of authors he knows. This week, he praises a book on the history of flight, a prediction for the economy and a jeremiad on American politics by Gary Hart. You could also read our own Kevin Hartnett on Fallows and American decline.