Recommended Reading: Against crowdfunding websites that marketize goodwill.
The Economy of Goodwill
Homes for Old Kindles
Tired of that ancient Kindle sitting around, gathering dust? Now you can trade it in.
Recommended Reading: New Ashbery
Recommended Reading: The American Reader has some new John Ashbery poems. We love “Listening Tour.”
Filing Fees and Free Shipping
“As I got older, the Nigerian scam artist turned into a meme. The ‘Nigerian prince’ became a joke tossed around by white people with the same ease that ‘Italian mobster’ jokes were likely tossed around in the ‘70s—but aided now by the internet. Whenever I came across casual references to my people as scam artists, I’d wince. There was more to us than the scam. Hell—there was even more to the scam.” On how novelist Teju Cole helped Ijeoma Oluo make peace with the Nigerian scam artist.
The Nobel Curse
A simple question: has the Nobel curse killed Orhan Pamuk? You could just ask President Obama, who recently picked up a copy of Pamuk’s most recent work, A Strangeness in My Mind.
Yaffa S. Santos on Going Beyond the Five Senses
Translation Troubles
At Words Without Borders, Scott Esposito examines the thorny issues of reviewing books in translation, when it may not be clear exactly who to blame or praise, the author or the translator.