Rizzoli’s is closing, but if the owners have their way, there’ll be a Rizzoli’s II opening its doors in the near future. In the meantime, you can read this Times piece about the bookstore, which puts its closing into context.
More on Rizzoli’s
A Front-Row Seat
For the most part, Alexis de Tocqueville had good things to say about the young United States in his book Democracy in America, which is probably why we tend to forget that he thought Americans weren’t funny. What de Tocqueville missed, according to a new history of American humor, is the extent to which American funniness emerged from subversive groups of outsiders. In Bookforum, Ben Schwartz takes stock of the arguments in American Fun.
Thank You for Your Submission
If you’re a writer planning to submit a novel manuscript to a literary agency, you might want to read these guidelines and recommendations, over at Electric Literature. Pair with Edan Lepucki’s Millions interview with her agent about publishing a first book.
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Obama on ‘Redeployment’
Recommended recommendations: President Obama recommends Year in Reading alum and National Book Award Winner Phil Klay‘s Redeployment.
Resurrecting Shelley
Early on in her career, the poet Muriel Spark decided that Mary Shelley was criminally underrated as a writer. In bringing the Frankenstein author the fame she deserved, Spark wrote a biography, distanced Shelley from her famed poet husband and labeled her “the founder of science fiction.” (Related: our own Lydia Kiesling on Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.) (h/t Arts & Letters Daily)
New Music
The Beatles‘ remastered catalogue is probably the hottest rock release of the moment, but there are other notable new releases this month: The Stone Roses‘ 20th anniversary re-release double CD and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (recently written up at The Millions)’s second full length EP, Higher Than the Stars.
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“With rebellion, awareness is born.”
Albert Camus was born one hundred years ago this month, and to commemorate the anniversary Oxford Journals has made 16 of its scholarly articles available for free.