Earlier this week, our own Thomas Beckwith reported on the Hermione/Ron scandal. Now, Mallory Ortberg has penned Ron Weasley’s secret diary at The Toast. “I don’t want to die. I’ve never even seen a movie. Seventeen years old and I’ve never seen a movie and I still don’t know what math is.” No wonder why J.K. Rowling wanted Hermione to end up with Harry.
Dear Diary
Friday Links
All week I’ve been enjoying posts by Jeremy Blachman at the Powell’s blog about life after the publication of his debut novel, Anonymous Lawyer. I particularly enjoyed hearing about his experience at BEA.In other blogging authors news. Critically acclaimed crime novelist George Pelecanos paid a vist to Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and left three posts. His new book is The Night Gardener.BarnesandNoble.com now accepts PayPal, so sell stuff on eBay and use the proceeds to buy books!Can’t remember if it’s forbidding, foreboding, or formidable? Check out Common Errors in English Usage, also available in book form.
On Hating Poetry
Ben Purkert reviews Year in Reading alum Ben Lerner’s The Hatred of Poetry. If you like the title, check out ten poems for people who hate poetry.
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Gate Keeper
Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft, a billionaire, a philanthropist, and an amateur book club leader. He posted his summer reading list on his website, The Gates Notes. You won’t find any beach reads because Gates prefers nonfiction such as However Long the Night: Molly Melching’s Journey to Help Millions of African Women and Girls and The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn From Traditional Societies?. You can read the latter along with him.
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The Quality of No Qualities
The new book Robert Musil and the NonModern offers David Winters a chance to revisit The Man Without Qualities. (While you’re at it, check out the essay on literary theory Winters wrote for us in September…and Matthew Gallaway‘s piece on Musil from January.)
Through the Pain
Recommended Reading: Cristina Fries on Excavation by Wendy Ortiz. (h/t The Rumpus)
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NYPL Gets Trippy
The New York Public Library has bought psychedelic guru Timothy Leary’s papers. The 335 boxes contain journals, videotapes, photographs and thousands of letters from avid trippers, including Allen Ginsberg, Aldous Huxley, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey and, yes, Cary Grant.
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