From Open Letters Monthly, a review of A Reader on Reading by Alberto Manguel (and more); and movies notoriously fail when they try to depict interiority, so why not just restrict ourselves to books? How we drown: You can be watching, and still not know someone is going down (and more). From FDL, a book salon on The Evolution of Everything: How Selection Shapes Culture, Commerce, and Nature by Mark Sumner. A review of Seneca and the Idea of Tragedy by Gregory A. Staley. If we want to spend time pondering the essential pointlessness of all human activity, where better to go than existentialism? A review of Wolf: The Lives of Jack London by James L. Haley. Kissing Inclinations: A potentially awkward social situation is the subject of a new scientific analysis from researchers at the MOVE Research Institute. You’ve heard of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but the lure of list-making has inspired plenty of people in the modern day to compile their own lists of wonders. Miles Davis was the personification of cool; Don Draper, not so much — The Notorious Ph.D. breaks it down for us. From tragedy to trend story: Tom Bissell writes in defense of Virginia Quarterly Review Editor Ted Genoways. Orwell and the Tea Party: George Orwell never thought that his work would outlive him by much — after all, he considered himself “a sort of pamphleteer” rather than a genuine novelist — yet sixty years later, Orwell endures.
