- The Tournament of Books rolls along with a few first round upsets (Congratulations, Sarvas!), but the highlight thus far might be a glimpse of Junot Díaz’s one-of-kind victor’s shirt from last year.
- Meanwhile, Stop Smiling offers up a Díaz interview.
- John Leonard’s son compiles a concordance to his father’s vigorous criticism, in which “thug,” “libidinal,” and “linoleum” make the top 10.
- The breathless inventorying of Roberto Bolaño’s posthumous papers continues.
- Our friend Eliza Barclay reports from the Andes, finding little cause for optimism.
- Victor Lavalle becomes the most recent essayist spurred to eloquence by the Obama inauguration.
- Also from the Atlantic, Hitchens and Marx: On again?
- James Wood and Claire Messud get grilled – sort of – by The Harvard Crimson: he’s the chef, she does laundry.
- The people who put William Kristol on payroll show themselves capable of good judgment. Congratulations, Ross Douthat!
- Wikipedia find of the week: beghilos (aka calculator spelling)
- Audrey Niffeneger is not feeling the recession. The NYT says $5 mil for The Time Traveler’s Wife follow-up.
- NPR explores the doodles of powerful people.
- CAAF spends some time with the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus and pauses on “limn.”
- Clay Shirky elucidates, perhaps better than most media pundits have, why newspapers need to be “thinking the unthinkable.”
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