Recommended Reading: Rachael Maddux’s “Hail Dayton,” which features one of the finest opening paragraphs ever printed.
“The town was called Dayton.”
Choose Your Own Apocalypse: Skynet or Stingrays
With the help of Our Final Hour author Martin Rees, Cambridge will soon open a Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. The Centre will investigate the threats posed by “artificial intelligence, climate change, nuclear war and rogue biotechnology.” To my ears, this sounds an awful lot like Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, which was memorably depicted in John Jeremiah Sullivan’s “Violence of the Lambs.”
The Restraints of Language
Recommended Reading: Elisa Gabbert at Guernica on the relationship between ideas and language. “How can the name come after the concept if you need the name to understand the concept? This problem of circularity always made me resistant to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in its strong version, which states that our thoughts are bound by the restraints of our language.”
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Skylight Books Commercial
Is Skylight Books the first independent bookstore with a television commercial? Either way, it’s certainly the only commercial (bookstore or otherwise) featuring two Millions contributors–and their dog!
Reading Lists Amended
Remember when Esquire released their not-so-great list of eighty books every man should read? Well, they have amended their list to eighty books every person should read, asking advice from “eight female literary powerhouses” including Roxane Gay, Michiko Kakutani and Lauren Groff. Our own Janet Potter recommends twenty-eight books you should read if you want to.
Mind the Label
“By casting my book as personal rather than professional—by marketing me as a woman on a journey of self-discovery, rather than a reporter on a groundbreaking assignment—I was effectively being stripped of my expertise on the subject I knew best.” Suki Kim on writing a work of investigative journalism that was miscategorized as memoir. Pair with this Millions piece in defense of memoirs.
@NickMoran
Wow. I agree. I also loved “besot by hyper-conservative goofery.”
I just forwarded “Hail Dayton” to a student I’m coaching, who fears she is irredeemably lackluster as a writer. I disagree. I think she has been beaten down by an idiot of a boss who “doesn’t like” her writing but can give her absolutely no specifics as to why. What I would like would be to stride into her office and smite him.
My student’s assignment is to let the words of “Hail Dayton” wash over her.
I am very excited about discovering Rachel Maddux. What a one-of-a-kind voice she [email protected]
Moe Murph
Least Favorite Comment: “There’s something wrong with it but I don’t know what it is.”
@Moe Murph, agreed! Hope you get to smite and soon!