50 years and 1 day ago Jean-Paul Sartre turned down the Nobel Prize in Literature. Yesterday Steve Neumann wrote for The Airship about what writers can learn from Sartre’s refusal.
Sartre and the Nobel Prize
Hipster Sommelier
Might I suggest a Pamplemousse with that Ben Fountain, sir? BookRiot has very helpfully compiled a list of La Croix/book pairings. See also: this in memoriam for Michael Jackson, beer connoisseur. Yeah no, not the one you're thinking of.
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Help Put Books in the Hands of NYC Kids
ReadThis and The Center for Fiction are throwing a day-long event featuring the likes of Elizabeth Gilbert, Rick Moody, Kurt Andersen, Sam Lipsyte, and Jamaica Kincaid. It's taking place at 17 East 47th Street in Manhattan on Saturday April 10th. "The price of admission? Your donation of two or more new or gently used board books through grade 12."
Remember This?
Before his death of natural causes in 2008, Henry Gustave Molaison had the world’s most famous brain. At 27, Molaison permanently lost the ability to form new memories, which led to him spending the rest of his life in “thirty-second loops of awareness.” In the LRB, Mike Jay reviews a new book on Molaison, Permanent Present Tense.
His Gift for Matching Books to Reviewers Was Uncanny
"He was surely the greatest literary editor there has ever been – brilliant, autocratic, endlessly curious and possessed of an extraordinary fund of knowledge about a vast range of subjects. True, he was not always easy to deal with, but when has the best ever been easy?" John Banville on the late Robert Silvers.
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Signs of the Apocalypse: Jersey Shore, the Novel
For those who don't believe in the decline of civilization, new evidence: Snooki has written a novel. Generously, The Wall Street Journal has read it so you don't have to.
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Paranoid Much?
At The Awl, Brian O’Neill makes the case that following the events of September 11th, America finally caught up to the mindset of Thomas Pynchon.
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HomeWORK More Like HomeFUN
“Heidi Maier, the new superintendent of the 42,000-student Marion County public school district in Florida, said in an interview that she made the decision based on solid research about what works best in improving academic achievement in students.” In place of traditional homework, 20,000 elementary school students will spend 20 minutes reading a book of their choice each night, reports The Washington Post. Pair with T.K. Dalton on books, kids, and gender.