“A group of young, attractive, if somewhat emotionally crippled people, who otherwise seem to have things going for them, have decided upon a secret pact to effectively end their futures. They want you to join them. Dinner parties at other people’s houses are involved.” For McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Erika Vause asks the question that needed to be asked: Does this harrowing plot summary describe a critically acclaimed film of the 2010s, or does it describe your PhD program? (Spoiler alert: It’s both.) Pair with this list of horror films about writers from the archives and you’ve got a real scarefest on your hands. We’re laughing, but we’re also crying.
Strange Cults, Powerful Elders, and Other Features of Academia
Book Picker Book Picker Pick Me A Book
It’s time for NPR‘s Book Concierge again! The interactive site will help you sort the year’s releases by about a gazillion criteria, including “book club ideas” and the seriously great “seriously great writing.”
Stephenie Meyer’s Body Snatchers
A mini-excerpt from Stephenie Meyer‘s bestseller for adults, The Host, just out in paperback.
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Slightly Off
Expats of all stripes have trouble defining the word “home,” which is true even when the expat is someone like James Wood, who left England for America in the ‘90s and set up a life for himself in Massachusetts. In the LRB, he describes the odd pain of emigration, lamenting that his “English reality” has faded into memory. (You could also read Charles Finch on trying to live up to Wood’s standards.)
The Ministry of Fear
“Nowadays, we tend to place spies into a cold war narrative: East vs. West, intrigue around the Berlin Wall, Graham Greene’s Vienna, and George Smiley’s London. But the first and most successful Soviet spies emerged much earlier.”
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