Thee, Compared

Jeopardy! champion, Maphead author, and all-around puzzle whiz Ken Jennings has devised a month-long “Great American History Puzzle,” and the grand prize winner will receive a free trip to Washington D.C., as well as a “Secrets of the Smithsonian” tour no doubt reminiscent of touring the back room at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie.

At The New York Times, A.O. Scott names The Big Lebowski a “Critics’ Pick.”

“Hunkered down in muddy trenches, the doomed scions of aristocratic families would take out their pocket editions of Housman and pine for the idealized, vanishing England they were fighting for.” On Peter Parker’s new book on A.E. Housman.

Recommended reading: Alexander Chee‘s essay “Against Wunderkinds.”