Need a giggle? You can now access the British Library’s collection of obscene writing online, which have previously been locked up for over a century. The newly digitized collection includes the works of the Marquis de Sade, Thomas Stretzer, and more.
Obscene and Digitized at Last
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Rainy Day Books
Someone left a manuscript out in the rain. On their tumblr blog, Doubleday Books share two pictures of their offices repurposed to dry it out.
Gate Keeper
Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft, a billionaire, a philanthropist, and an amateur book club leader. He posted his summer reading list on his website, The Gates Notes. You won’t find any beach reads because Gates prefers nonfiction such as However Long the Night: Molly Melching’s Journey to Help Millions of African Women and Girls and The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn From Traditional Societies?. You can read the latter along with him.
The Best Magazine Articles
Before it gets too long and unwieldy, browse this list of the best magazine articles ever written (plus links), including pieces by Joan Didion, David Foster Wallace, John Updike, Norman Mailer, Susan Orlean and Hunter S. Thompson.
Egan On E-Readers
Jonathan Franzen isn’t the only writer opposing technology and digitization. Jennifer Egan, in a panel discussion last week, compared Facebook to a “huge Soviet apartment block.”