As you probably read last week, Elon Musk (founder and CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX) is sure that we’re living in a computer-generated simulation. Over at The New Yorker, Joshua Rothman takes a hard look and tries to determine the actual odds of humans inhabiting a simulated world.
It’s All a Game
Was a National Book Award Rigged?
“Percy’s victory set off a controversy that involved the most powerful man in publishing, a famous journalist eager to take credit for the award, and a cub reporter who would go on to become one of the most celebrated writers of our time.” Benjamin Hedin delves into the mysteries of a controversial award.
●
●
Deaf Poets Society
The inaugural issue of Deaf Poets Society is out, featuring new “intersectional disability literature & art.” For other recommended reading, don’t miss our Great Second-Half Book Preview.
●
●
Short Circuit Reading
Do you ever find yourself skimming novels looking for exciting words and hyperlinks? You aren’t the only one mixing up the digital and print reading worlds. Neuroscientists believe we are developing new brain circuits for skimming online information that are rewiring how we’ve approached reading for centuries. Pair with: Our essay on how writing is also changing to fit our fragmented attention span.
Homes for Old Kindles
Tired of that ancient Kindle sitting around, gathering dust? Now you can trade it in.
●
●
One comment:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
An Ashtray Instead of a Computer
FSG’s outstanding Work in Progress series drops in on the offices of Lapham’s Quarterly founder Lewis Lapham.
Proto-Stalin
The world isn’t exactly wanting for character studies of Captain Ahab, but Chris Power manages to come up with a novel analysis of the character in this essay about the Moby-Dick antagonist. In Power’s telling, Ahab was valuable in part for what he told us about the 20th century — namely, he foreshadowed the dictators and despots to come. You could also read Hester Blum’s contribution to this essay about the best American novels.
●
●
The Writer as Outsider
“Writers are outsiders, and usually not by their own choosing. It’s why they’re writers. If they didn’t feel alienated from human experience, they wouldn’t feel so drawn to writing to make sense of their lives. It’s not the outsider’s facility for language that makes her a writer — many a student body president or homecoming queen can turn a phrase — but her ability to howl at the moon, on the page.” Karen Karbo writes for Powell’s Books’s blog about how much publishing has changed in the last 20-some years, but she also has a lot of great words about why people would want to deal with writing and publishing in the first place. Pair her smart essay with our own Nick Ripatrazone‘s piece “Practical Art: On Teaching the Business of Creative Writing.”
●
●
Dyer on ‘Reader’s Block’
A rare Geoff Dyer essay, previously unpublished in the U.S., on the curse of reader’s block, excerpted from the forthcoming Otherwise Known as the Human Condition.
●
●
Religion by any other name. Musk and the others are fundamental techno-extremists. What did DeLillo say in Mao II? Or was it White Noise? What happens when the old god dies? Where does all that faith go? Apparently it goes into your iPhone. Nothing new, same old, same old, the king is dead, meet the new boss…