• Conversational Reading is discussing a recent Sven Birkerts essay on the dilemma of reading in the digital age. Scott Esposito writes, “I simply don’t believe that people aren’t sophisticated enough to figure out how to read amidst digital entertainment options, but are sophisticated enough to do so in the face of other impediments. Actually, I’d say that the abundance of digital ephemera would be a boon to reading; that is, after you’ve been fried all day on beeps and flashing lights, aren’t you chased into the arms of a good book, or some other equally ‘antiquated’ experience? I am, for one.”
• At The New Yorker, Jill Lepore writes about dueling editors — Henry Luce of Time Magazine and Harold Ross of The New Yorker: “Ross liked to tell the story of how, on hearing that the Army was about to start publishing a paper, he deserted his regiment and walked a hundred and fifty miles to Paris, to the offices of the Stars & Stripes, where he stayed for the duration of the war, as a reporter and editor. One piece of enduring Luce lore has it that Time began because, while at Camp Jackson, Luce was struck by how little the enlisted men knew about the war they were being sent to fight. [Alan] Brinkley suspects this boot-camp business is hooey, and I take the same view of Ross’s hoofing it all the way to Paris. What’s interesting, though, is that even their just-so stories run in different directions: Ross strapping his typewriter to his back and making for the metropolis, Luce pledging himself to bringing news of the world to every last Joe.”
• At The Poetry Foundation blog, Harriet, A.E. Stallings asks, “Doesn’t it seem that every time you open a magazine, someone is praising their morning oatmeal, exalting their suburban cul-de-sac, hymning a cup of filter coffee?”
• The Millions writers wax nostalgia poetic on the bookstores they have known, including Book Soup (CA), Housing Works Bookstore & Café (NYC), and Second Story Books (MD).
• And finally, a heck of a speech by publishing and digital guru Richard Nash.
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