Recommended Reading: “Voices of the Walmart.”
Aisle Nine
Ocean’s 2016
Who among us hasn’t considered turning to jewel thievery and the heisting life during some of our weaker moments? Over at The Daily Beast, Geoff Manaugh takes a look at why we all secretly dream of becoming jewel thieves. If you enjoyed this heist story but you found it lacking in Ben Affleck, then here’s a piece on his true-crime flick The Town and bad drama.
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The aMTrAk Residency
Remember that time Amtrak offered a 10-day train residency, and the internet experienced a collective freakout because trains are literary catnip, and then we found out it was kind of a scam? Barnard Zine Library does, too. In honor of that cultural moment, they recently sponsored an “MTA Residency” that, while less glamorous, has already yielded beautiful work.
Recovering Iris Murdoch
With many of her books no longer in print, Iris Murdoch's posthumous reputation leaves much to be desired, and her ardent fans seek to rectify this.
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This is a Curiosity-novel
In “kids these days” news, any book now counts as a “novel.” There are fiction novels and nonfiction novels, recipe novels and poetry novels and picture novels and, less facetiously, a new novel told in letters of recommendation, Julie Schumacher’s Dear Committee Members. And now that you’ve finished my three-sentence nonfiction digital novel, here’s the world’s longest novel, which clocks in at 3 million pages that I confess I have not read.
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The Epic Continues
Discovery of the Week: Researchers in Iraq have found twenty new lines from the Epic of Gilgamesh after recovering old tablets from smugglers.
New Murakami (Might Be) Coming Soon
That new Haruki Murakami book that’s been selling one million copies per week in Japan? Yeah, the one you’re excited to read? It’s coming out in Spanish in October of this year, so hopefully that means an English translation is in the pipeline as well.
Believing in the Bookternet
Recommended Viewing: Year in Reading alumna Rachel Fershleiser’s TED talk “Why I heart the Bookternet” on building reading communities through the internet. “The more tools that we get for communication and collaboration, the more we’re taking reading and writing — these really solitary pursuits — and building communities around them for connection and conversation.”
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