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
What Really Happened in the 1980s
Recommended: Meagan Day on Joan Didion’s essay “In the Realm of the Fisher King,” which you can find in Didion’s collection After Henry.
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Experience + Openness + Neurology
“It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes a great artist creative” but The Atlantic makes a strong attempt and cites the story behind Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein as an example of what can happen “when experience, openness, and the right neurology come together.”
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Is There Life on Pallas?
John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar isn’t the only vintage science fiction novel making waves this week. Andrew Joron takes a look at “German fantasist” Paul Scheerbart’s Lesabéndio – a 1913 novel that was recently reissued by the folks at Wakefield Press.
#LemonadeSyllabus
Beyoncé’s visual album/phenomenon Lemonade has only been out for a few days and already it has spawned countless thinkpieces. One of the best and most inspiring things to come out of it has been the #LemonadeSyllabus hashtag, popularized by Rutgers University educator Candace Benbow. The series “encourages Black women to share curated reading lists of books, poems and other inspirational literature penned by Black female authors that celebrate every aspect of what it means to be a Black woman.”
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Working Against the Narrative
“If I was working against any existing Detroit narrative, it is the one where working-class black people exist as numbers or victims and not as fully-realized, complex people.” Angela Flournoy on her most recent work, The Turner House, a National Book Award finalist. We interviewed the author and reviewed the book.
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