“Raymond Chandler did not invent the private eye — Dashiell Hammett and a few others got there first. But his vision is the one that caught the public eye and stuck most indelibly in the imagination, like — in one of his aromatic metaphors — ‘a tarantula on a slice of angel food.’” On a new biography of the man behind Phillip Marlowe.
Like a Nun in a Motorcar
Walking with David Mitchell
The new David Mitchell novel, The Bone Clocks, ends in rural Ireland, which explains why Kathryn Schulz chose to interview Mitchell on a walk through the Irish countryside. At Vulture, she talks with Mitchell about supercontinents, writing in childhood and the global scope of his work. You could also read the story Mitchell recently wrote on Twitter.
The Best Case for Cloning
A 27 pound lobster has been caught off the coast of Maine. Now, who’s going to be the first to come up with a 50 pound dab of butter?
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Real Life Crazy Rich Inspiration
Ahead of its mid August movie debut Kevin Kwan talks about the real life inspiration behind his Crazy Rich Asian trilogy. “But the people who know me, who have read the books, and who are also in that world in Singapore, Hong Kong, and other parts of Asia, don’t get it.” Refinery29 has more.
A Is for Apple
“I want to show you our world as it is now: the door, the floor, the water tap and the sink, the garden chair close to the wall beneath the kitchen window, the sun, the water, the trees.” Apples, plastic bags, teeth In The Guardian, Karl Ove Knausgaard attempts to explain the world to his unborn baby, object by object. Pair with our review of his epic, My Struggle.
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Infinite Jest, Illustrated
Poor Yorick Entertainment, a tumblr that attempts to illustrate the world of Infinite Jest.
Backhanded
Writers have long been attracted to duels, if only because, for the most part, they offer an easy way to ramp up the conflict in a story. At Page-Turner, James Guida takes a look at their enduring relevance, with reference to the history of the duel in Europe. Pair with: our own Nick Moran on duels in Russian literature.
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Well, She Should Know
“Here is a rare recording of Flannery O’Connor reading an early version of her witty and revealing essay, ‘Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction’”
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Scream for ‘The Scream’
A recent study by the American Psychological Association finds “people are more likely to be moved and intrigued by abstract paintings if they have just experienced a good scare.”
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