The Greek gods and goddesses were nothing if not self-serving. From Mallory Ortberg over at The Toast, here is an introduction to Dirtbag Hera. Don’t you worry, Dirtbag Athena got her comeuppance, too.
Babies Don’t Like Snakes
Outkube
The Onion‘s tired of incendiary comments left by trolls reading their articles. (Who isn’t?) So the publication has created Outkube, a “decoy website” rife with troll-bait. It’s hysterical. Elsewhere, they’ve started curating a list of people who just don’t get the joke.
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In Thrall of Print Mathematics
Former nytimes.com design director Khoi Vinh tries to renew his digital subscription to the paper, and it doesn’t go well: “The total customer experience here is haphazard at best, and, at worst — I hate to say this because I am still friendly with many people at the company, but in truth there’s no way around it — it’s insulting.”
Curiosities: SF Tour
History’s 10 best prison breaks.A Paid Content column argues that the true genius of the Kindle is that it breaks the trend toward multi-tasking……But there is still a huge amount of confusion surrounding the Kindle’s DRM policies.AbeBooks aggregates some summer reading lists.VQR compiles a brief reading list for those following the post-election protests in Iran.Bay Area readers: Conversational Reading is taking a page from The Millions playbook and hosting a San Francisco indie bookstore walking tour. Sounds fun!
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Tatjana Soli on Paul Yoon
In The New York Times, Tatjana Soli gives high praise to Snow Hunters, the first novel by Once the Shore author and Best American Short Stories alumnus Paul Yoon. The novel, which tells the tale of a North Korean refugee named Yohan, proves that Yoon is “well-suited to the short form,” she writes. (Related: Soli has written for us.)
Stranger Danger
Siglio Press has just come out with a book version of Sophie Calle’s The Address Book, excerpts of which can be seen at The New Yorker.
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Bathtub Books
“At home, I dedicate occasional whole days to reading as if I’m a convalescent. The ideal place for this is the bath, where the body floats free,” Rachel Kushner told The New York Times in a “By the Book” interview. Yet just because her reading style is leisurely doesn’t mean her reading is; she discusses her love of Proust and avoidance of books known for their plots. For more Kushner, read our own interview with her or her 2013 Year in Reading post.
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