From Nebuchadnezzar to Hippocrates to the Victorian asylum: The Paris Review takes a look at mental illness and its treatments across the centuries.
“Madness and Meaning”
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An Act of Creation and Destruction
Recommended Listening: David Naimon interviews Year in Reading alumnus Jesse Ball about his latest book, How to Set a Fire and Why—one of the most anticipated books of 2016.
Private Collection
Over at Hyperallergic, Claire Voon tours the New York Public Library’s collection of historical erotica, ranging from graphic illustrations hidden in photo albums to mid-century gay erotica. Pair with this Millions essay on private libraries and what books reveal about their readers.
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Return to Sender
“A woman I did not know called me to help her with something I have always loved to do: write. Certainly it was fate, my involvement destined to be a seed for a fairy tale ending, I thought. I was wrong,” Scott Saalman writes about the moral challenges of agreeing to help someone with their writing at The Morning News.
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Publish or Perish, But Please Don’t Peer Review
The recent shuttering of the University of Missouri Press raises an important question for all academic publishers: is the cost of peer review to blame?
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Edwidge Danticat on Gabriel García Márquez
“I had always felt that [Gabriel] García Márquez’s short stories often took a back seat to his longer works, and that his deadpan dark humor was not discussed often enough,” writes Edwidge Danticat.
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An Accomplished Saxophonist
Here’s a great interview with Colin Stetson, the saxophonist who’s lent his talents to such acts as Tom Waits, Bon Iver, TV on the Radio, Arcade Fire, and Feist.
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