Ian McEwan is going after religion in his latest novel. The Children Act will focus on the conflict of parents who refuse medical treatment for their children due to religious beliefs. You can expect the book in September.
New McEwan on the Way
Joke Science
What exactly happens to our brains when we laugh? Richard Restak (of The American Scholar) investigates.
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Out of the Rain
The word “nostalgia” comes from the Greek root nostos, meaning “return home,” and algos, or “pain.” It’s painful because we cannot return home again. Ramp up the nostalgia and check out this elegy to the old school book tour by Keith Lee Morris. If we’re talking book tours, here’s a piece on the distinct personality types sure to derail your literary event.
Sick and Wrong
Recommended Reading: Dan Kois on his favorite books of the year. On Alissa Nutting’s Tampa, he writes: “Tampa mixes deadpan social satire, lurid true-crime storytelling, and out-and-out porn into a poisonous stew.”
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.
I Know I Would
It’s almost December. Wouldn’t you rather be surfing in Fiji?
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Gah!
Despite your lifelong aversion to robots and crash-test dummies, the Uncanny Valley might not actually be real. At Boing Boing, Maggie Koerth-Baker looks at the evidence that unsettling dolls are just that, unsettling.
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