Jenn Shapland had the pleasure of cataloguing the archives of Carson McCullers, Gertrude Stein, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Their possessions left her with a few lingering questions. Pair with Shapland’s piece on cataloguing David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King.
Questions from the Archives
“Rote lessons before the air raid drill”
At The Atlantic, Caleb Crain (of Necessary Errors and n+1 fame) writes about the galvanizing effects of memorizing his favorite poem. (If you’re wondering, the poem in question is W.H. Auden’s “In Praise of Limestone.”)
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Hard Choices
Recommended Listening: David Sedaris presented three short stories while guest hosting WNYC’s Selected Shorts. The three stories were written by Amy Hempel, Tobias Wolff, and Frank Gannon, and each one has to do with “hard choices,” says Sedaris.
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Getting into Character
In one of the most delightful photography projects of late, authors have dressed up as their favorite children’s book characters for Cambridge Jones’s 26 Characters exhibition at The Story Museum. Neil Gaiman looks particularly dashing as Badger from The Wind in the Willows. The exhibition will run from April 5 to November 2 in Oxford, U.K.
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Monday Linkday
My mom pointed out this article in the Washington Post about a bookstore in Baltimore that primarily gives away books rather than selling them. It’s called the Book Thing:”That’s the whole thing with the Book Thing,” Wattenberg says. “All I am is a middleman. The people have books…. They give them to me, they’re happy to have a place to see them go somewhere, and the people that get the books are happy to get the books.”Also, file under conspicuous consumption: Anyone looking for an extravagant gift for the film buff in their life should look no further.Spotted on the el: The Travels of Marco Polo… sure the red line doesn’t go all the way to China, but we can dream.
Les Misérables: Now 100% Brawnier
The latest project from King’s Speech director Tom Hopper will be a big-screen version of Les Misérables, starring Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean and Russell Crowe as Javert. You can check out the trailer over here.
Data-Mining, The Trial, and America
“Joseph K., that icon of single-lettered anonymity from Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial,” writes Tom Engelhardt for Guernica, “would undoubtedly have felt right at home in [James] Clapper’s Washington.”
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