Recommended Reading: Maria Russo’s Times review of the new Dr. Seuss book. (If you haven’t yet, go check out Michiko Kakutani’s companion review-in-verse.
Guinea Pig, Actual Pig
Theories on Jim Harrison
"How is it possible that a smallish army of discerning readers agree that Jim Harrison is one of the few truly great living American writers, yet he has not gotten the wider audience—or the widespread praise—he so plainly deserves?" Our own Bill Morris has some theories.
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To Have or Have Not
Read our own Edan Lepucki’s great review of Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids? Then you might want to read Vivian Gornick’s complementary take on the book. In Bookforum, she reads Meghan Daum’s anthology as well as Kate Bolick’s Spinster, placing the two in a broader feminist context.
Refuge in Reading
It's World Refugee Day and Book Riot has 100 (yes, 100!) reading recommendations. Meanwhile, earlier this year, Ted Gioia proposed, Kanye-style, that Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin was actually the greatest refugee novel of all time.
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Ancient Welsh Book To Be Made Available Online
A 13th century Welsh book originally written by monks on pages of animal skin has finally been made available online thanks to the country's National Library. The ancient Book of Aneirin contains the Gododdin, one of the oldest poems ever written in the language.
HBO Turns Down The Corrections
HBO turned down the television adaptation of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, despite an all-star crew: Franzen himself adapted the novel to television, Noah Baumbach promised to direct the series, and Ewan McGregor and Maggie Gyllenhaal were cast as leads. Novelist A-J Aronstein can now breath a sigh of relief; they won't be filming The Corrections at anyone's house.