You may have heard that The Paris Review Daily is recapping Dante’s Inferno. This week, Alexander Aciman guides readers through Canto 8, better known as the Canto in which Dante crosses the river Styx.
Worse than the Delaware
Making the Puzzle More Hip
Meet the 23-year-old who’s been tasked with “injecting some swag” into the “traditionally conservative New York Times [crossword] puzzle.”
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Litterae Publicae
Azar Nafisi thinks the best way to pin down a culture is to take a look at its canonical works of literature. In The Republic of Imagination, as Adam Begley details in a review in the Times Literary Supplement, she examines a few of America’s classic novels, including Babbitt, Huck Finn and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. You could also read Jonathan Russell Clark’s review of the book for The Millions.
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The Strand Says Goodbye
“By the time Mr. Bass bought the building for $8.2 million in 1997, the Strand had become the largest used-book store in the world.” Fred Bass, the owner of the Strand, has died at the age of 89. Bass — who bought used books with panicked fervor, opened up satellite kiosks, and created the fabled literary quiz for prospective employees — turned his father’s used bookstores into a New York City literary landmark.
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On the tiny island of La Gomera, the residents had a problem communicating across the ravines. What did they do to resolve this, you ask? Simple: they invented a whistle language. (h/t The Rumpus)
On Creativity and Psychiatry
Good news for you! If you’re a creative person, you’re “no more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders than other people.” Bad news for your family! If you’re a creative person, you’re “more likely to have a close relative with a disorder, including anorexia and, to some extent, autism.”
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