“That makes it easy, doesn’t it?”

Books by Friends, a semi-regular feature at The Atlantic, sees writer James Fallows recommend the works of authors he knows. This week, he praises a book on the history of flight, a prediction for the economy and a jeremiad on American politics by Gary Hart. You could also read our own Kevin Hartnett on Fallows and American decline.

“History is littered with poets…  who set up their own presses to publish their work, because it was so different from the normal forms of the time. Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard are one example- they started their own press called the Hogarth Press (it is still going today) to publish collections of their work.” Self-publishing is something we’ve written about many times before,  but Sarah Gonnet raises a good point – self-publishing isn’t truly a new phenomenon, and it does allow for a great deal of creative freedom.

Any time two writers like George Saunders and Ben Marcus get together for an interview, it’s worth a read. Here are a couple of Millions essays on Saunders and Marcus, respectively.