If you haven’t fantasized about being a solitary lighthouse keeper, then you’ve either a) read some of the scariest bits from Susan Casey’s The Devil’s Teeth; or b) you haven’t yet watched Aeon Magazine‘s gorgeous Behind The Light short film.
I Am My Lighthouse’s Keeper
In Memoriam, Edward Albee
"For example, I don’t feel that catharsis in a play necessarily takes place during the course of a play. Often it should take place afterward." The Paris Review offers a manuscript page from playwright Edward Albee, who died this past weekend. See also: this amazing piece of lore behind the titling of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
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This Bug’s Life
Tea with beetles, chess and lemonade with butterflies, laundry day with a praying mantis--it's the stuff of children's books and the dioramas of San Francisco artist Lisa Wood, now on display at The Gold Bug in Pasadena, CA.
William Gibson’s Zero History
The New York Times reviews William Gibson’s new novel Zero History: “To read Gibson is to read the present as if it were the future...” Also: Douglas Gorney interviews Gibson for the Atlantic.
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Next Up: The Norton Anthology of Infographics
Now that they’ve announced the impending publication of The Best American Infographics, it might be prudent to revisit Reif Larsen’s classic Millions article, “This Chart Is a Lonely Hunter: The Narrative Eros of the Infographic.”
From Day Job to Night Job
"The idea came to Mr. Mallory one night as he sat on his couch watching an old favorite, Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a lamp switch on in the apartment across the street." Published under a pseudonym, former executive editor Daniel Mallory's debut novel The Woman in the Window was acquired and published by his own imprint. Pair with: an essay about the emergence of "reimagined thrillers" that create characters out of setting.
Two Degrees of Fame
The copy of Shakespeare's works disguised as a Hindu religious text and read by imprisoned Nelson Mandela will go on display for this first time later this summer.
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Reproduction is a Funny Thing
"Motherhood has always been contested terrain, but for the last decade or so it’s been a virtual battleground; every year, almost like clockwork, we have another flare-up in the so-called Mommy Wars, with another Tiger Mom or Get-Back-To-Work-er or Can’t Have It all-er launching a grenade as prelude to a book tour. And as much as I have an obvious stake in these battles as a mother and a feminist, I’ve come to find them depressingly repetitive, all sound and fury but offering little in terms of the policies that might actually affect our decisions.” At the LARB, Stephanie Bower gives her take on Why Have Kids?, Jessica Valenti's new treatise on parenting.