Other
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Margarine: A Public and Personal History
When I think of sitting at the kitchen table as a child eating dinner, I don’t have memories of luscious homemade foods.
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Has Summer Reading Sucked on a Universal Level All Along?
If you remember feeling oppressed by summer reading assignments—or skipping it altogether, opting to half-ass it and watch the movie adaptations instead—you aren’t alone. At The Millions, Carolyn Ross argues that these assignments are “killing a love of reading” for students…
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Peter Orner at Recommended Reading
She’d been ready to do her part for the war effort. Out of appreciation and gratitude and patriotism. All those hours on that terrible ship. Now what Seymour wanted was love, and she couldn’t possibly give that to him. For…
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The Dark Secret of the Old Silicon Valley
In 1983, “Silicon Valley” meant something different: different tech companies were dominating for different reasons, in different areas of California’s Santa Clara County. The Atlantic’s Alexis C. Madrigal went to look at what remained of that Silicon Valley from thirty years…
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The McSweeney’s Poetry Series: Victoria Chang’s The Boss
On August 5th from 6 to 7 PM, McSweeney’s will be hosting a poetry reading with Matthew Zapruder and Victoria Chang. It will be held at SPUR on 654 Mission Street in SF. If you’re in the area, you should join…
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Do We Really Need Another Self Portrait?
A few months ago, we sang the praises of Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde with an essay from Helena Fitzgerald. This month, CBS Records is releasing bootlegs/session tracks from a different, much less beloved Dylan album: Self Portrait. Kevin Courrier has some thoughts…
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American Book Cover in Paris (and Lots of Other Foreign Places)
SF Gate has a neato slideshow comparing American book covers to their foreign editions. Sometimes they change barely at all (Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones), while sometimes they’re unrecognizable—Maggie Shipstead’s Seating Arrangements gets not only a visual redesign but a whole new…
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Writer’s Block? These TED Talks May Help
Aerogramme Writers’ Studio, a website based in Australia, recently compiled a list of “13 Inspirational TED Talks for Writers.” Included are talks by Chimamanda Adichie, Amy Tan, Billy Collins, John Green, and more. With one exception, each talk is twenty…
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The Words They Carry
The Atlantic has begun curating a series of authors’ favorite passages, poems, and lines. The series is called By Heart and includes an essay on each selection and an illustration by Doug McLean. Many authors discuss their favorite line from their favorite…
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Happy Birthday, Herman Melville!
At the time of this posting, the 29th Annual Moby-Dick Marathon has about three hours left of its 24-hour reading of Herman Melville’s classic novel. When the reading finishes, attendees will celebrate Melville’s birthday “in old-fashioned style with song and cake.”…
