Amazon Plans for Zombies
Encyclopedic Knowledge
A transcript of Jorge Luis Borges’s conversation with Argentinian poet Osvaldo Ferrari about the power and pleasure of academic knowledge appears in English for the first time. As Borges explains it, "I think that the encyclopedia, for a leisurely, curious man, is the most pleasing of literary genres."
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There’s always funny in the banana stand.
Rolling Stone asked David Cross about Arrested Development's Netflix relaunch and he says it's "audacious and amazing."
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Caw, Says the Crow
Max Porter’s Grief Is the Thing with Feathers is “the book of the moment,” according to the staff of Houston-based Brazos Bookstore. For other recommended reading, don’t miss our Great Second-Half Book Preview.
Facts and Feelings
“Historical fiction was not—and is not—meant to supplant literature from the period it describes.” Year in Reading alumnus Alexander Chee on historical novels and creative liberties.
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Trethewey’s Inaugural Reading
Natasha Trethewey will give her inaugural reading as the U.S. Poet Laureate tonight at the Library of Congress. The event is free and open to the public, and some of Trethewey’s work can be found here, here, and here.
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Soder v. Soda
The popularity of Joshua Katz’s American dialect maps inspired The Atlantic to create their own dialect video. In it, Atlantic staff members call people from across the country, recording them so listeners can hear their accents, and ask them to answer questions from a 2003 Harvard survey.