Fifty years after T.S. Eliot’s death, the poet’s estate has finally agreed to authorize a biography, which explains the publication of Young Eliot, a new book on his early years. Among other things, the book reveals details about Eliot’s first marriage, in which his wife Vivienne Haigh-Wood gave him the nickname “dearest Wonkypenky.”
Waste of the Young
On Social Novels
“What if, instead of simply critiquing Go Set a Watchman’s failure, we tried to analyze it? The new, older work makes more sense if we read it as an attempt to accomplish two tasks: first, to master—unsuccessfully, it turns out—the smart-magazine style that Harper Lee developed in her student journalism; and second, to write in a genre that often relied on the ironic elisions typical of ‘smart style’: the midcentury social-problem novel.” Tom Perrin on Harper Lee and the social novel. Pair with Michael Bourne’s Millions review.
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Capitalism Is Not About Equality
Check out this interview with Andi Zeisler, author of We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement. “Capitalism, ultimately, it’s not about equality, it’s not about social justice. It doesn’t care about fixing fundamentally unequal systems that impact humans on an everyday level. Critical thinking is the really important skill, to [ask], does it seem like this is a company or a brand that really cares about women?” Our own Edan Lepucki’s piece on feminist anthems complements the interview nicely.
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5 Scary Stories
Recommended reading, Halloween edition: 5 scary stories written by women, courtesy of BookRiot.
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Pete Campbell is Mr. Darcy
This summer, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis will put on a stage production of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. As they always say: it’s all fun and games until you cast Vincent Kartheiser as Mr. Darcy.
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Going Back Up There
It’s not every day that fans of a novel look forward to a Lifetime movie, but such is the case for fans of Flowers in the Attic, whose 1987 film adaptation left out many of the details that made the book a “rite of passage for teenage girls in the ‘80s.” At Slate, Tammy Oler delves into the book’s importance and its history on the screen.
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Greatest Summer Reads
Still looking for summer book recommendations after checking our 2015 Second-Half Preview? We’re not sure we believe you, but here are fifty of the greatest summer reads as ranked by Flavorwire, just in case.
Thanks, Amigo
In his upcoming book Borrowed Words, Philip Durkin looked at the languages that have shaped English over the centuries, charting the influence of Spanish, Italian, French and more. At Slate, he sums up his most important data with the help of an interactive tool.
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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.