The Paris Review celebrates issue #200.

• “Do we even have to say that physical beauty is beside the point when discussing the work of a major author? Was Tolstoy pretty? Is Franzen? Wharton’s appearance has no relevance to her work. Franzen perpetuates the typically patriarchal standard of ranking a woman’s beauty before discussing her merits, whether she is an intellectual, artist, politician, activist, or musician.” – Victoria Patterson at the Los Angeles Review of Books takes Jonathan Franzen to task for his New Yorker piece on Edith Wharton.

• Happy one year birthday to our friend Book Stalker.  Come see the lady behind the stalking on March 7th at our Greatest 3-Minute Movie Stories event.

• PANK’s guide to AWP in Chicago.

• Rudyard Kipling writes about some imperialist soldiers guarding a train back in the olden days.

• A list of funny pranks pulled off at MIT.

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