Wikipedia states that its ultimate mission is to collect all the knowledge in the world. The biases of its users may earn the site a few jabs, but if a number of studies which compare the site’s articles to those of professional encyclopedias are reliable indicators, its content is accurate enough to satisfy the needs of most users. But now the whole project may be in trouble for a simple and very odd reason — it’s apparently done so well that most of its contributors have gone home.
Our Sources are Reliable
Stalk Famous New York Readers
Have some fun with this New York specific feature highlighted by Atlas Obscura. The New York Society Library is private member-based library and it has some pretty famous members, going all the way back to Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Due to the library's excellent record keeping you can trace these famous members reading histories. "In the early 20th century, Library staff switched from big, blank ledger books to index cards for record keeping. Henceforth they archived cards only for “prominent” members, discarding the rest. The gap is major, but the surviving cards offer a lifetime of book recommendations."
DFW Festchrift at The Quarterly Conversation
The new issue of The Quarterly Conversation features a symposium on the work of the late David Foster Wallace, featuring essays by Edie Meidav, Lance Olsen, and Andrew Altschul...plus Scott Esposito's welcome defense of Infinite Jest's canonization.
Kindness Cuts Through
"Kindness cuts through the rest. And it’s a reminder for us all to reach out. Write that sweet note. Make that loving phone call. Because you never know what will stick." Here is the follow-up to Julienne Grey's fantastic New York Times piece "My Mother is Not a Bird," courtesy of Electric Literature.
●
●
Bolaño: Required Reading
Chile’s official tourism website is running a series on “what to read before, after or during your trip to Chile.” Their most recent selection? Why, the work of Roberto Bolaño, of course. You might find our Bolaño Syllabus to be of help here, too.
●
●
Image of the Text
Recommended Reading: A brief history of book illustration and books as objects, over at Literary Hub.
The Author Would Like to Say Something
Now that Louise Erdrich has won the National Book Award, it's worth looking back on her interviews from recent years. You can read her piece in the Art of Fiction series, published in 2010 in The Paris Review; you could try her interview with the Times from back in October; or else you could take a look at her sit-down with The New Yorker in April. (This probably goes without saying, but you could also just read her new novel.)
●
●
Offshore Seinfeld
One Indian call center's "culture training" involves the study of Seinfeld episodes, writes Andrew Marantz. Hopefully they don't screen the Harold Pinter-inspired episode, "The Betrayal." Meanwhile, Joshua Kurp has located most of George's ex-girlfriends.
●
●
Appearing Elsewhere
Park Slopers, I'll be reading tonight at 7 p.m. at The Community Bookstore on 7th Avenue, with our former guest contributor Joshua Henkin and some other folks, in celebration of the long running literary magazine Glimmer Train. It would be lovely to see some familiar faces, or new ones.
●
●
One comment: