Readers are mourning a fallen Monterey cypress tree, said to have inspired the classic Dr. Seuss book The Lorax (once considered a very dangerous book). “The tree was estimated to be about 80 to 100 years old,” according to Tim Graham, a spokesman for the San Diego Parks and Recreation Department, who added that there is “no definitive cause on why it fell.” Let’s hope a Truffula Seed is found quickly before things get worse.
The Lorax Mourns Another Tree
Raised on B-Movies
I’ve loved old sci-fi B-movies forever, and a staggering number of my childhood memories involve Ray Harryhausen. For this reason, I’m really geeking out over The New Yorker’s entire science fiction issue, but in particular this piece by Colson Whitehead deserves your time.
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Celebrating Beverly Cleary
With her 95th birthday approaching, Beverly Cleary gets the profile treatment in the Times. (previously at The Millions: Cleary’s underappreciated memoirs)
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No Exit
As Der Spiegel bluntly puts it, when Jean-Paul Sartre met up with the head of the RAF, a German terrorist group, he tried to use his powers “to persuade them to stop murdering people.”
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Celtic Tiger’s Collapse
Gabriel O’Malley‘s “Letter From Dublin” for n+1 is an interesting primer on the current state of Ireland following the collapse of the Celtic Tiger.
5 under 35
The National Book Foundation announces the 5 Under 35 Selections for 2009.
The Franzen Printing Error
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Marriage in Literature
In response to the Bookends question, “What is the Best Portrayal of a Marriage in Literature?,” Year in Reading alum Leslie Jamison writes movingly about the poetry of Jack Gilbert and concludes that “this is marriage: not knowing one’s wife but constantly relearning her, not possessing her but rediscovering her, constantly finding a new beloved within the already familiar spouse.” For a slightly different perspective on marriage in literature, look no further than our own Matt Seidel‘s “Survey of Literature’s Non-Traditional Marriage Proposals.”
Wanna Get Away?
Well, this is gorgeous. Nisa Maier curates a collection of photographs and stories meant to “capture the essence of every country on the planet.” The end result, Let’s Travel Somewhere, can take you from India to Cuba, or from Russia to New Zealand.