Comic Macbeth
Literary Birthdays
New Directions turned 75 yesterday, so here’s a look back on the history of their colophon. In other birthday news, Iris Murdoch was born on this day in 1919, and tomorrow The Catcher in the Rye turns 60.
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Or, The Whale
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One of Ireland’s Lesser Known Sons
For those aching for more Ireland in the wake of Bloomsday, here’s a piece about noir-master Raymond Chandler’s childhood in Waterford.
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Boom Boom Boom
Fellow children of the ‘90s will remember how much that decade was a kind of Golden Age for disaster movies. Then as now, explosive blockbusters like Independence Day, Twister and Dante’s Peak satisfied a collective appetite for wide-scale destruction and mayhem. At The Morning News, Ethan Gilsdorf considers what the genre’s evolution has to say about us.
Orbital Vacations
Looking for a place to burn those vacation days? How about outer space, or one of the other 44 places tapped by The New York Times?
Still Kicking
How often do journalists unfairly stereotype the Rust Belt? All the time, says Jim Russell. In a piece for Pacific Standard, he argues that much of the reporting on Dayton, Flint and other industrial towns falls prey to hyperbole and generalization. (Related: Darryl Campbell on the recession and Rust Belt fiction.)
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Reading Unites
“I’m here to visit the prison’s weekly book club. Six men burst through the library doors, holding copies of White Teeth by Zadie Smith.” Emily Rhodes shares stories from inside a prison book group.
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