150 New Mark Twains

“Bengali children’s fiction’s limitless supply of ghost stories is matched by little other than its readers’ appetite for it,” writes Siddharthya Swapan Roy. “Anthologies dedicated to ghostly thrills come out with unfailing regularity and every publishing house that does not wish to upset its child readership pays due respects to ghosts and their stories.”

So you’ve bought the books on Urban Homesteading, but what you really want is to escape completely and build your own comfy cabin in the woods. Here are three books by Homesteaders who “go it alone.”

At Ploughshares, take a journey through Florence with Emily Smith (and Dante).

The Atlantic’s Maria Konnikova comes out against regional spellings. We’re guessing she’d agree with our own Bill Morris, who argued for prescriptivism in July.

Are you reading this because you’re procrastinating? Do you happen to be a writer? We thought so. At The Atlantic, Megan McArdle explores why writers are the worst procrastinators. Hint: It’s because we have a bad case of imposter syndrome. This isn’t the only theory on why we procrastinate, though.

Our own Edan Lepucki’s whirlwind tour continues. Her debut novel California landed at number 3 on the Times Bestseller list and she celebrated with a visit to The Colbert Report. There was a bubble wrap drop. New Yorkers can see her tonight at WORD bookstore in Brooklyn and tomorrow at McNally Jackson in Manhattan. See Edan’s events page for the rest of her tour dates.