“There is some Darkness on the Edge of Town within Miracle Temple; dreams too big for a small town, highways beckoning getaway from all that conspires to keep you there. In lieu of Jersey, high school sweethearts, and Carter-era gloom, it’s the Outer Banks, straight girls’ drunken flirting, and cruel summers.” Jessica Hopper on Mount Moriah’s new album Miracle Temple.

Literary notables — including Jennifer Gilmore, Keith Gessen, and Salman Rushdie — assess the career of Philip Roth.

John Scalzi on why libraries matter.

Anne Applebaum has made a foray into food writing.

“The age of technology is moving too fast to critique with any authority, certainly in novels. But what do stand out are certain emerging truths that seem fascinatingly at odds with prevailing wisdom. Like the relationship between the wired world and loneliness; or busyness and achievement; or social networking and love. So often it seems the technologies and mediums created for one purpose in fact foster the opposite.” David Goodwillie talked with Purple.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “The World that Hip-Hop Made” is terrific reading, and includes a Ray Bradbury nod.

Jeanette Winterson looks back at Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.

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