For the Atlantic, Sarah Boxer recounts her experience reading In Search of Lost Time on her cell phone. Pair with Hannah Gersen’s year of reading Proust.
Reading Proust
A Terrible Beauty
One night in 1937, Avies Platt decided to attend a meeting of the Sex Education Society, held at London’s Grafton Galleries. When the meeting was over, she ended up driving none other than W.B. Yeats to the afterparty. In the LRB, she recalls her encounter with greatness.
The Artist’s Guide to Parenting
“The physical purpose of reproduction is, obviously, the continuation and renewal of genetic continuity, human survival. Its psychological purpose seems to me to be a particularly poignant kind of mutual learning and, matters being equal, ineffable comfort.” What is the relationship between being an artist and being a parent? Maria Popova at Brain Pickings takes a look at sculptor Anne Truitt’s collected journals, Daybook, to try and suss out an answer.
Feel Good, Inc.
“Take a quick break from the apocalyptic news and end your week with this list of books to eagerly anticipate (assuming the world doesn’t end) instead!” The Rumpus lists some books that could make you feel a little bit better.
Two Ways of Looking at Kapow!
Public Radio, Straight No Chaser
WNYC’s Jazz Loft Project series is absolutely essential listening: a portrait of New York’s bygone bohemia, complete with resident genius Thelonious Monk. And a book version is out this week from Knopf – a great gift idea for jazz lovers.
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“No writer needs to be all the writers all the time”
Zadie Smith in conversation with Édouard Louis for the Document Journal. “Listening to the novelists Édouard Louis and Zadie Smith in conversation inspires a kind of hushed glee, a bliss familiar to eavesdroppers who encounter sublime discourse. ” How can you resist?
Nicholson Baker and Friendly’s
Nicholson Baker talks about why he does so much writing at Friendly’s, a fast food chain that soon may exist only in its descriptions.