Mairead Small Staid writes on the history and poetics of the ampersand, “a logogram masquerading as a letter, a letter that is also a word—like a and I and even o, but no—a letter that is only a word, the plainest word of all.”
Words & Symbols
Books of a Southern Capital
As part of their efforts to explore new literary locales, the bloggers at Ploughshares took on Richmond, perhaps the only city to claim Edgar Allan Poe, Tom Wolfe, and GWAR.
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Best American Notables at The Millions
We’re proud to report that “Beautiful Babies” by our editor Lydia Kiesling and “Summer without End” by Wayne Scott were both named “Notable Essays” in the 2016 edition of The Best American Essays, edited by Jonathan Franzen.
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Writing History
Laila Lalami recently wrote about “How History Becomes Story,” but writing an interesting and compelling history book sans fiction has its own challenges. Thankfully S.C. Gwynne offers some tips in a piece for the History News Network, including the hard-hitting reminder that “it is your job to force your facts into narrative form.”
A Rush of Blood to the Head?
An intriguing pairing: Norman Rush tackles James Ellroy‘s Blood’s A Rover in the current New York Review of Books.
Pythonated
We’ve published a fair number of pieces about the import of book covers. You may have read one of our US-UK book cover battles. Over at The Awl, Amanda Pickering takes a look at one of the stranger aspects of book design: the animals that appear on the covers of programming books.
“Reflections on Gandhi”
Looks like George Orwell’s birthplace is going to be turned into a memorial – but to a different writer and activist. The land will be dedicated to Gandhi, who Orwell wrote about in his 1949 essay “Reflections on Gandhi.”
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Where Everyone’s a Cardsharp
Edward “The Godfather” Thorp has been widely recognized as the “father of card counting” since the publication of his bestselling book Beat the Dealer in 1962. Today, at 70 years old, the man’s impact on the card game is ubiquitous, but perhaps nowhere moreso than at Las Vegas’ annual Blackjack Ball.