What happens when one of the “Big Three” science fiction writers decides to take on the most widely-read book in the world? Over at Open Culture, Josh Jones takes a look at Isaac Asimov‘s “fun, chatty, non-academic” exploration of The Bible. “[Asimov] explains that while humans are inherently irrational creatures, he nonetheless felt a duty ‘to be a skeptic, to insist on evidence, to want things to make sense,’” Jones writes. “Part of that duty, for Asimov, included making the Bible make sense for those who appreciate how deeply embedded it is in world culture and history, but who may not be interested in just taking it on faith.”
Isaac Asimov Takes on ‘The Bible’
Soder v. Soda
The popularity of Joshua Katz’s American dialect maps inspired The Atlantic to create their own dialect video. In it, Atlantic staff members call people from across the country, recording them so listeners can hear their accents, and ask them to answer questions from a 2003 Harvard survey.
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What Scares You
“If what you’re writing doesn’t scare you, you probably ought not be writing it.” The Rumpus interviews Josh Weil, author of The Great Glass Sea.
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Stories and Glass
From the Paris Review: Daniel Torday on lost family stories, Pliny the Elder, and the origins of glass.
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Saddle Club
Without the influence of Black Beauty, current opinions of horses and preadolescent girls’ reading lists might have looked very different.
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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.
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Disgrace
Do you think J.M. Coetzee‘s Disgrace should be made into a movie starring John Malkovich? Someone does–see the trailer here.
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