Recommended Reading: Anya Groner’s short story “Suspecting the Smiths” at The Oxford American. “From the ages of nine to eleven, I worked as a spy… I discussed my cases with my partner, who went by code name Mountain Chicken Mother of the Buddha.”
Spying with Mountain Chicken Mother of the Buddha
He Started It
Those of you with brothers or sisters will not be surprised to learn that siblings who are both writers tend to be a wee bit competitive. In a piece for the Poetry Foundation, Casey N. Cep runs through a few famous examples, among them the Bröntes, the Wordsworths and Charles and Mary Lamb. (h/t Arts and Letters Daily)
Terrific Ham
“Terrific ham. The best. Terrific eggs. Were they green? Who knows? So many years.” In case you missed it, the best tweets from yesterday’s #TrumpBookReport trend. Pair with our own Claire Cameron‘s translation of Lauren Groff‘s Fates and Furies for Twitter.
How to Seem (Or Be) Well-Read
“The easiest way to appear to be well-read is to socialize exclusively with uncultured cretins, which simply won’t do, so instead you should subscribe to the New York Review of Books and read it religiously, committing to memory one idea from each piece and praying to achieve a casual air when, at a dinner party, fobbing off this insight as your own.” Advice from Slate on how to appear well-read, with some bonus advice on how to actually become well-read, just for good measure.
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Everything I Despise
Can you tell the difference between complaints by Jonathan Franzen and YouTube comments about the evils of saggy pants?
The New Gutenberg
In the latest issue of Harvard magazine, Nathan Heller writes about Arion Press, the last remaining “full-service letterpress in the United States.” Apparently Arion, which has “an in-house foundry where lead is melted into ingots,” sells editions of canonical titles (like Ulysses) that retail for thousands of dollars. (h/t our own Kevin Hartnett)