Adapted for Screen
If You Give a Librarian a Cookie
A Cambridge University librarian opened up a rare book from the 16th century...only to find a half-eaten chocolate chip cookie.
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More Illusions
Recommended Listening: Brad Listi’s interview with The Last Illusion author and Millions contributor Porochista Khakpour.
The Fantastic Flying Books
Have you watched “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” yet? You should. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
Mermaids and Capital
If the description “a comic thriller about mermaids, the natural world and ruthless capitalism” isn’t enough to pique your interest, you might be inspired to pick up Lydia Millet’s latest by the title of Laura Miller’s review, which describes Millet as “the P.G. Wodehouse of environmental writing.” At Salon, the book critic goes into the many reasons she enjoys Millet’s work, among them the author’s knack for deploying humor at appropriate times. FYI, Millet wrote an article for The Millions recently.
Sedaris by the Sea
Recommended Reading: David Sedaris’s essay about his sister Tiffany’s suicide, “Now We Are Five,” for The New Yorker. “How could anyone purposefully leave us, us, of all people? This is how I thought of it, for though I’ve often lost faith in myself, I’ve never lost it in my family, in my certainty that we are fundamentally better than everyone else.”
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On Democracy, Writing, Faith
Last month, while traveling through Des Moines, Iowa, President Barack Obama had the chance to interview one of his favorite authors: Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson. The first part of the conversation was just published in the NYRB and the second part will appear in the next issue. Obama, who is a big fan of Robinson, had recently quoted her in his eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, one of nine victims in the shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.