Bites: Gladwell is Analyzed, Zizek on Post-Communism, the “Weirdness” of Health Insurance, and more

Malcolm Gladwell The internet is a-twitter with three things this morning: the anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the health care bill, and Maureen Tkacik’s Nation piece,  “Malcolm Gladwell for Dummies.” HTMLGIANT’s Justin Taylor sees the essay as more than just a piece on Gladwell, but also “worth looking at…in light of [the] ongoing discussion of what good criticism can or should look like.”  The Millions wonders if this is “a tipping point for Gladwell haters.” Berlin Wall […]

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Bites: PEN’s Spelling Bee, Fitzgerald’s Taxes, Whitman’s Jeans, Obama the Comic, France Hates Scientology, and more

Last night at Le Poisson Rouge, some of New York’s biggest writers got together for a spelling bee to benefit PEN American center’s literary journal, PEN America and the release of their eleventh issue, “Make Believe.” Lit. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tax returns.(Thanks, The Rumpus) Whoa, another e-reader from Barnes & Noble?  I’m totally confused. Today, we’re tackling e-readers and book reading, I guess.  First, Book Bench with Bruce McCalls’ new book Fifty Things to do with a Book (Now that […]

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In France, Rebellion By Actually Reading National Classic

In America, we love to ban books. When something — violence, sex, devil worship, the “n” word, the list is endless — offends, someone out there is sure to attempt to keep others from being exposed to it. Consequently, in a somewhat silly act of Freedom, we hold a yearly Banned Books Week during which one can choose, in protest, to read nearly any book ever written. The French, on the other hand, don’t really ban books. They really like […]

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