What We Want
Tiny Umbrellas and Baby Carrots
Down with the “mocktail.” McSweeney’s has provided a helpful list of fun drinking games for non-drinkers. This Millions piece on eating and drinking and reading should help to whet your appetite.
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To Paraphrase Potter Stewart
“The more you take, the more you have to give back — the better the work has to be.” The New York Times features Year in Reading alum Rivka Galchen in dialogue with Anna Holmes (“You can’t always prove appropriation, but you usually know it when you see it”) on the distinction between artistic license and cultural theft. Pair with our review of Galchen’s Little Labors.
Truly A Random House
In 1969, Random House’s Book of the Month Club offered members an edition of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland illustrated by Salvador Dalí. (You can view the full collection here.) Forty-three years later, the publisher had a mail delivery experience that was almost equally surreal.
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Acts of gruesomely violent chivalry and vehicular aggression.
Yet another entry for the list of all time greatest single-purpose tumblrs: Witless Innuendo, bringing you “a collection of those end-of-review warnings from The New York Times‘ film critics.”
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The Faces of War
Photographer Lalage Snow photographed Scottish soldiers before, during, and after their deployments to Afghanistan. The photographs show “the toll that fighting … takes on our troops.”
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Four Legs Good
This week in book-related infographics: a look at “Memorable Animals from Literature” ranging from Moby Dick to Snowball to Jonathan Livingston Seagull. After all, lest we forget, “four legs good, two legs bad.”
It’s Tuesday: New Releases!
New this week for bookfans: Novels by Nicholson Baker and Nadeem Aslam, as well as a foray into young adult lit by Jane Smiley.
Unbreakable
Recommended reading: Wil S. Hylton profiles Laura Hillenbrand and the effects of chronic fatigue syndrome on her writing in a piece for The New York Times Magazine, just in time for the release of the film adaptation of Unbroken.