It’s fitting that Ray Bradbury credited his interest in architecture to an H.G. Wells story he read when he was five. At The Paris Review Daily, a previously unpublished essay by the author, who says his career in architecture started when he noticed there was no plaque at the residence of Sherlock Holmes. Related: Tanjil Rashid on Bradbury’s connection to the Middle East.
Building Up
Snap Shot
As Alden Jones puts it, a “sex-death-art trifecta” is the core of The Small Backs of Children, the new book by Lidia Yuknavitch. At The Rumpus, he talks with the author about the novel, which centers on a war photographer who takes an iconic photo in Eastern Europe. You could also read the author’s Millions essay from last week.
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Word comics of the day
Recommended RSS-ing: A better word of the day from artist Tory Hoke, who pairs each unusual word with a hand-drawn comic. Friday’s entry, “spurcitious,” is charmingly defined in relation to a thumb and a hammer. Hate pictures? Other tried-and-true options include curators at Merriam-Webster, The New York Times, and this guy on Twitter.
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Tuesday New Release Day: King, Eco, Schulze, Vonnegut, Catherine, Gallaway
Another packed line-up: New this week is Stephen King’s 11/22/63, Umberto Eco’s The Prague Cemetary, Ingo Schulze’s, and Adam and Evelyn (all three of which were previewed by us). We also have new biographies of Kurt Vonnegut and Catherine the Great. And new in paperback, sometime Millions contributor Matthew Gallaway’s The Metropolis Case.
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Seamus Heaney on the Loyalists
Amid recent revival of sectarian conflicts in Ireland, Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney said he believes there is “never going to be a united Ireland.” He went on to ask, “Why don’t you let them (loyalists) fly the flag?”
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Best Friends
“Three weeks before she died on July 25, 2012, Marcia (Marty) Brown Stern ’54 sent me a registered letter, which began, ‘What is enclosed may astonish you.’ Indeed it did. The envelope included a draft of ‘marcia,’ an unpublished poem that Sylvia Plath ’55 wrote about their sophomore year together at Smith College in 1951.”
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