The astrological signs of Brooklyn, from the fantastic Zinester’s Guide to NYC.
Indeed.
Yesterday President Obama upped his nerdy dad cred considerably when he took Sasha and Malia shopping at a local independent bookstore.
“A few times during his presidency, Obama admitted, he had written a personal check or made a phone call on the writer’s behalf, believing that it was his only way to ensure a fast result. “It’s not something I should advertise, but it has happened,” he told [Saslow]. Many other times, he had forwarded letters to government agencies or Cabinet secretaries after attaching a standard, handwritten note that read: “Can you please take care of this?”
“Some of these letters you read and you say, ‘Gosh, I really want to help this person, and I may not have the tools to help them right now,’ ” the president said. “And then you start thinking about the fact that for every one person that wrote describing their story, there might be another hundred thousand going through the same thing. So there are times when I’m reading the letters and I feel pained that I can’t do more, faster, to make a difference in their lives.”
“The Phantom Tollbooth” is not just a manifesto for learning; it is a manifesto for the liberal arts, for a liberal education, and even for the liberal-arts college. What Milo discovers is that math and literature, Dictionopolis and Digitopolis, should assume their places not under the pentagon of Purpose and Power but under the presidency of Rhyme and Reason. Learning isn’t a set of things that we know but a world that we enter.”
Norton Juster’s “The Phantom Tollbooth” at 50 : The New Yorker
This is just a really great article about a really great book.
(via ryeisenberg)(via ryeisenberg)
“Let’s get this out of the way quickly: Moneyball was not a book about nerds and statistics and butterball catchers who do nothing but walk—not really. It was a book about the temporarily misperceived value of nerds and statistics and butterball catchers who do nothing but walk and, above all, about how to profit off that misperception. Which is to say that, at bottom, Moneyball was a book about a charismatic visionary (Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane) who achieved success by exploiting market inefficiencies. This is a conceit known as Every Business Book Ever. The guy sitting next to you on an airplane is reading a book like that. Malcolm Gladwell farts books like that. Moneyball told a simple story and told it wonderfully, but baseball being what it is—a game so thoroughly wrapped in its own bullshit that you’d need a grand jury to find its soul—the book was received as heresy.”
Run for the Borders
It’s official - going out of business sales start at all Borders tomorrow. - @Maetron, AP
Does anyone know of a review aggregation site like RottenTomatoes but for books?
I’m finally getting around to reading this. I heard nothing but good things until the other night, Rachel Maddow, while quoting from the book qualified it with, “Mind you, I hate this book.”
Does anyone know why?
wnyc:
How to blow your own mind: watch the trailer for Brooke Gladstone’s new graphic novel The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media! -A.P.
Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin’s Crosshairs - Levi Johnston
How did the Don become the Don? A new prequel to “The Godfather” promises to explain the “unknown history” of how Vito Corleone rose to power in Depression-era New York. Grand Central Publishing, part of the Hachette Book Group, announced on Wednesday that it would publish “The Family Corleone,” a book based on a screenplay by Mario Puzo, in June of next year. Mr. Puzo died in 1999, but the book has the blessing of his estate. “The Family Corleone” was written by Ed Falco, the author of three novels and the winner of a Pushcart Prize. “The Godfather” was first published in 1969 and has sold more than 21 million copies.
“If there’s one book you need to read to understand what is going on in Egypt it is, ‘Egypt after Mubarak. Liberalism, Islam and Democracy in the Arab World’ by Bruce Rutherford.” - Fareed Zakaria
