Agatha Christie could actually kill you. She studied pharmacology and learned how to create poisons, which led to her use of poisons in her novels. You could also read Daniel Friedman’s essay on solving the mystery of how to close a crime novel.
Poison in the Plot
Most Overrated Books
The Most Overrated Books of 2011 according to NY Daily News, and Steve Jobs is included?
Party Animals
“The point of a party is to make us forget we are solitary, wretched and betrothed to death; in other words, to transform us into animals.” Michel Houellebecq offers some handy tips, over at The Believer. Pair with this Millions review of Houellebecq’s The Map and the Territory.
Tuesday New Release Day: Haruf; Johnson; Bacigalupi; Nichols; Taylor
New this week: Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf; Loving Day by Mat Johnson; The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi; The Rocks by Peter Nichols; and The Shore by Sara Taylor. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great 2015 Book Preview.
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Dancing Feet
Fred didn't always have Ginger: The Boston Review looks at the many dance partners of Fred Astaire, as catalogued by Hermes Pan: The Man Who Danced With Fred Astaire and The Astaires: Fred and Adele.
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Wanting to Be White
“How easy for the waterfall to turn back / into the river, the long, silent face / holding all that has passed through it / as though untouched…” A new poem from Charif Shanahan at Lit Hub, “Wanting to Be White,” forces the audience “to reconsider poetics and race, distinct yet indivisible in the American grain.” Not a fan of poetry? Check out our list of ten poems for people who hate poetry.
This is your brain on metaphor
Annie Murphy Paul looks to neuroscience to understand the pleasure of the written word.
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Burn Outs and Genre Blindness
Where does the “panic attack when you think you’re not reading enough” fit in to all of this? Here are a few professional readers on how they keep from mixing business with pleasure. This essay on Lewis Lapham and reading just for pleasure might also tickle your fancy.