Published this week by Straylight, the novella The Old Home Place by longtime Millions staffer Michael Bourne offers an intimate look at an ambitious young couple, in love and in trouble, as they grapple with America’s complex racial history. Download the full novella for free or visit Straylight and click on the shop tab.
Michael Bourne’s ‘The Old Home Place’ Published by Straylight
It’s All Volapük To Me
“‘A language without umlauts,’ he wrote, ‘sounds monotonous, harsh, and boring.'” If Esperanto just doesn’t have enough umlauts, Volapük just might be the right made-up language for you.
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Less than Horrible
In the latest edition of By the Book, Neil Patrick Harris explains his love of Gone Girl, Steve Martin, and John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. We’ve written about the series in the past — you might want to look back on the entries by Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Colson Whitehead.
Story Arcs
Inspired by Kurt Vonnegut, researchers programmed a computer to identify the main arcs in stories. You could also read our editor Lydia Kiesling’s review of Vonnegut’s Letters.
Well That Was Dramatic
Author Terry Pratchett‘s archives have been destroyed by steamroller, according to The New York Times. The hard drive containing all of his unpublished work was, per his wishes, run over by a close friend. We ran this remembrance on the occasion of his passing two years ago.
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Alice Walker on Screen
Still deciding what to do this Friday night? Watch PBS’s new documentary on Alice Walker, Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth, at 9 p.m. EST. At The Daily Beast, Agunda Okeyo discusses the history of the film’s production, which took six years. “Stories about women of color told by women of color are sidelined and neglected in favor of our stories being told by white women and men,” director Pratibha Parmar says.
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