Republican nominee for vice president Paul Ryan has flip-floped on Ayn Rand. According to the LA Times, Ryan once credited Rand as a key inspiration, but now that he's trying to win over a national audience, the young Republican is distancing himself from the godless, supremely self-interested writer. Quoth Ryan: "I reject her philosophy. . . . It's an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview." (Meanwhile, in a feat of outlandish click-baiting, the New York Times has a blog post entitled "Paul Ryan, Black Panther?")
Ever wondered what the original 1925 ad for The Great Gatsby looks like? Maria Popova dug one up in an old issue of The Princetonian.
"I’ve attended MacDowell twice. It is one of the very few places I’ve ever been that I feel homesick for when I’m not there." A history of, and scenes from, three artists colonies, courtesy of writer Alexander Chee.
The recall of Jonah Lehrer's Imagine gives New York Magazine an opportunity to reflect on the history of book pulping.
On KCRW's Bookworm, the author-interview show hosted by Michael Silverblatt, Sheila Heti chats about her breakout book How Should a Person Be, and reads a passage about how locking a spider in a bathroom is an apt metaphor for the boundaries needed to prevent love and friendship from turning murderous.
What was it like to work with a genius with a penchant for the macabre, a brilliance for creating suspense, and an unmatched genius for the craft of filmmaking? Tonight at the Union Square Barnes and Noble in New York, author Steven DeRosa talks about his new book, Writing with Hitchcock, about the director's collaborations with screenwriter John Michael Hayes.
From the LRB, an essay about George Orwell's widow, Sonia, who managed George's estate, and was often portrayed as "grasping and interested only in the income the estate generated." Hilary Spurling's new biography of Sonia aims to discredit the "venom" that has plagued her reputation.
