New this week: A Cure for Suicide by Jesse Ball; Lovers on All Saints’ Day by Juan Gabriel Vásquez; The Kindness by Polly Samson; a new book of correspondence between Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti; and Apollo in the Grass by the Russian poet Aleksandr Kushner. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great Second-Half 2015 Book Preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Ball; Vásquez; Samson; Ginsberg & Ferlinghetti; Kushner
Borrowing Made Easy
A fledgling New York tech firm has invented a new service, Oyster, that the company claims is a lot like Spotify in its workings. Their innovation? The products they’re sharing are books.
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To Grit or Not To Grit?
Recommended Reading: On whether or not "grit" is the true key to workplace (and lifetime) success. Angela Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, says yes.
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Miranda July Steals
"I discovered that stealing required a loose, casual energy," writes Miranda July. "A sort of oneness with the environment, like surfing or horse-whispering."
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On Literary Blogging
Book Snobbishness: “Using your personal taste or literary standards to dictate to other people what they should spend their time or money on. It's not just about looking down on someone for reading romance or science fiction (though that's part of it, of course), but also about shaming readers for where they spend money or the format in which they read.” Amanda Nelson, managing editor of Book Riot, sits down with 0s&1s to talk about gender, books and blogging. To get your fill of literary blogging, check out our list of must-read literary Tumblrs.
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On That F*ckin’ “A”
Members of the Word Reference forum contemplate the etymology and meaning of the “A” in the expression, “Fuckin’ A.” Elsewhere Geoffrey Nunberg, linguist and author of Assholism: The First Sixty Years, shares his take on the ubiquitous “a-word,” which he believes originated during World War II.
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From the Mixed-Up Files of E. L. Konigsburg
Rest in peace E. L. Konigsburg, author of one of the greatest children's books of all time. (Hyperbole? Oh, go get lost in the Met's fountain.)
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