This week, Football Book Club will be reading Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright and posting essays about Brain Fever by Kimiko Hahn — its selection from last week — and life without the NFL. Going Clear was a National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and has been turned into a documentary by HBO.
Football Book Club: Lawrence Wright’s ‘Going Clear’
Always Changing
Recommended Reading: The always hilarious (and very Southern) David Sedaris on shopping in Tokyo and “the perfect fit.”
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20 Rules for Writing Detective Stories
“Secret societies, camorras, mafias, et al., have no place in a detective story. To be sure, the murderer in a detective novel should be given a sporting chance; but it is going too far to grant him a secret society to fall back on. No high-class, self-respecting murderer would want such odds.” -From the much-quoted 1928 essay by SS Van Dine, noted art critic and mystery writer, on the 20 rules for writing detective stories. (via Guardian)
Have Tos and Not Have Tos
Recommended Reading: Scott Timberg on Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman.
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The New Great Books
“How can we represent four hundred years of American literary history in a way that doesn’t reinforce the unfortunate hierarchies of those four hundred years?” Year in Reading alum Rebecca Makkai writes for Electric Literature about the opening of the new American Writers Museum in Chicago and what it means to curate an historical canon of letters. See also: our interview with Makkai from a couple of years back.
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Cetology
Classics Illustrated: Draftsman Matt Kish gives Moby-Dick the Zak Smith treatment.
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Feeling Very Still
Can you hear me, Major Tom? The world lost one of the good ones today in David Bowie; celebrate his enormous contributions to art as we know it and take a look at this list of Bowie’s 100 essential books which includes everyone from Camille Paglia to Anthony Burgess. Bonus: here’s a link to Bowie singing “Changes” in what became his final live performance.
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Goon Squad to the Small Screen?
Well, this is interesting. HBO is looking at turning Jennifer Egan’s Pulitzer-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad into a TV series.