“Is it possible to keep an octopus in a private home?” “Are Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates the same person?” Oh, the things people have asked reference librarians.
Ask a Librarian
New Release Date for JJS Book
John Jeremiah Sullivan’s new book, The Prime Minister of Paradise, now has a UK release date: June 9, 2016. Read our own Bill Morris’s review of Pulphead.
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Remember to Tip Your Archivists
Thanks to the work of archivists at The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, two scholars have unearthed a 1901 play by Edith Wharton called "The Shadow of a Doubt," reports The Guardian. “After all this time, nobody thought there were long, full scale, completed, original, professional works by Wharton still out there that we didn’t know about. But evidently there are. In 2017, Edith Wharton continues to surprise.” Pair with this reflection on the role of New York City in Wharton's novels.
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Paris, I love you
There's an excerpt of Rosecrans Baldwin's new memoir in GQ. Paris, I Love You but You're Bringing Me Down comes out next week!
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From Flop to Top
Patrick deWitt, author of The Sisters Brothers (which our own Mark O'Connell reviewed last October), expected Harry Mathews' novel The Journalist to be a "terrible flop," but soon found it was "every bit as great as Mathews' more celebrated novels."
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The Maya School Needs Help
Last year, Netherland author Joseph O'Neill helped open the Maya School, a school for Syrian refugee children in Turkey. Now he's asking for donations of additional funds to keep the school operational. "We have set up a transparent and cost-effective partnership with Turkish counterparts of great integrity and knowhow," O'Neill writes. "Of the $16,000 we raised last year, $3000 still remains. That tells you how far your dollars will go."
Making Mistakes
"These were my two first mistakes about honesty: I thought it meant relentless self-flagellation, and I thought it could redeem everything." Leslie Jamison and Anna Holmes discuss the mistakes they made as young writers.
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