At Brain Pickings, Maria Popova meditates on attention and the works of Simone Weil, among them Gravity and Grace. Popova writes that Weil “wrote beautifully of attention as contemplative practice through which we reap the deepest rewards of our humanity.”
Rewarding Attention
David Foster Wallace’s Papers Opening to the Public
The University of Texas, Austin, is opening its acquired manuscripts of David Foster Wallace’s private papers, books, stories, and essays to the public. Previews of Wallace’s marked-up copies of books by DeLillo, Borges, and Updike are available on its website. (via New York Times)
The Laughing Monsters Excerpt
Recommended reading: An excerpt from Denis Johnson‘s upcoming novel, The Laughing Monsters, is available from Work in Progress.
When He Was Good
The 80th birthday of Philip Roth inspires a festschrift of sorts over at New York Magazine, with Sam Lipsyte, Kathryn Schulz, James Franco (natch), and others weighing in on Roth’s Best Book and other vexed questions. (For the record, it’s Sabbath’s Theater.)
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Carol Hughes to Write Memoir
Ted Hughes’s widow, Carol Hughes, intends to write a memoir about her marriage to the former poet laureate.
And Now for Some Humor
In which Dr. Indiana Jones is regrettably denied tenure because “his timeliness in grading and returning assignments was a concern.”
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