Recommended Reading: Over at Aeon, Tiffany Jenkins writes about the importance of secrets for a child’s development and in children’s literature.
Secret Space
Artists and Writers Protest at TIFF
1,500 writers and artists signed a protest letter, “No Celebration of Occupation,” against the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to spotlight the city of Tel Aviv. (from Democracy Now)
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Give Me Free Reading Time or Give Me Death
If the looming election has you feeling like you might need a change of address on November 9th, you might (might) consider the United Arab Emirates. Vice President Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, has implemented a groundbreaking initiative which requires government employers to give workers an allotment of free time for reading. Sheikh Mohammed had this to say to novelist Paulo Coelho’s praise of the initiative, “Did you know, Paulo, that in the 9th century, our region had over 100 publishing houses on the outskirts of Baghdad alone? … When its life was centered on books, Baghdad was, my friend, a beacon in the worlds of astronomy, medicine, mathematics and philosophy. Where is Baghdad today?””
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Tuesday New Release Day: Soli; Zambra; Newman; Tyler; Spindler; Hepworth; Lange; Kushner
Out this week: The Last Good Paradise by Tatjana Soli; My Documents by Alejandro Zambra; The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman; A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler; The First Wife by Erica Spindler; The Secrets of Midwives by Sally Hepworth; Sweet Nothing by Richard Lange; and The Strange Case of Rachel K by Millions 2013 Year in Reading favorite Rachel Kushner. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great 2015 Book Preview.
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“Bob wasn’t the settling sort.”
I promise you that the best thing you’ll read today is this remembrance of the Kilimanjaro climbin’, chemotherapy-cocktail imbibin’, tank bustin’ and cricket playin’ life of Major Robert Crisp, D.S.O, M.C.
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Ripatrazone & Reviews
Our staff writer Nick Ripatrazone has published two books in the last year – the short story collection Good People and the novella We Will Listen For You – and both have recently been reviewed in New Jersey papers, which agree that the books are “an invitation to look beyond the stone walls of churches and gape in wonder at the world and the unknowable vistas beyond.” Pair with Nick’s ever-relevant essays on teaching English and becoming a writer, not a priest.
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False Negative
A striking photo of the Brontё sisters is not, in fact, a photo of the Brontё sisters. The women in the photo look a lot like them, but their hometown didn’t have much in the way of photography in the 1840s, and there isn’t any record of the Brontёs getting their photo taken. So how did the picture become known for being something it isn’t? At the LRB’s blog, Alice Spawls explains why. Pair with our own Edan Lepucki on Jane Eyre’s Mr. Rochester.
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