LA CATEDRAL: A VISIT TO PABLO ESCOBAR'S SELF THE TEN COOLEST EASTERN-EUROPEAN BOOKS YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OFAUTHOR:

JEFFREY ZUCKERMAN

The Ten Coolest Eastern-European Books You've Never Heard Of. By Jeffrey Zuckerman. Black Balloon has just published Robert Perišić’s Our Man in Iraq, translated by Will Firth. Despite its title, the novel takes place almost entirely in Croatia and feels so deeply Eastern European in sensibility that I found myself jotting

down other books

10 INSTANCES OF LITERARY CENSORSHIP 1. Shakespeare. Thomas Bowdler is so famous for his censorship that “bowdlerizing” has become a pejorative for the act of neutering texts. In 1807, Bowdler, an English physician, published The Family Shakspeare (sic; it was later changed to its proper spelling), an expurgated tome featuring 24 vanilla versions of Shakespeare’s plays. In Bowdler’s rendering, exclamations of “God THE 10 GREATEST AUDIOBOOK NARRATORS: AN INSOMNIAC'S GUIDE The 10 Greatest Audiobook Narrators: An Insomniac's Guide. By Jake Flanagin. Some people use white noise machines. Some use earplugs. I, on the other hand, cannot fall asleep without an audiobook. Albeit more benign than an Ambien addiction, it’s pretty terrible. Without the voice of a BAFTA-winning British stage actor murmuring softly from CHEKHOV OF THE SUBURBS: 5 GREAT JOHN CHEEVER WORKS YOU CAN John Cheever helped to define suburban disillusionment through his short stories. He stripped the suburbs of the 1950s and ‘60s in such a terrifying and true manor that even today Mad Men continues to make allusions to his work and takes clear influence from his portrait of the time.. But if you’ve watched Mad Men and haven’t read Cheever, or if you just want to enjoy his work, here are THE HIDDEN CONNECTIONS IN STEPHEN KING’S UNIVERSE It by Stephen King (via Redesign Revolution) Castle Rock is an imaginary town in Maine which serves as the setting for a ton of supernatural incidents. Cujo, The Dead Zone, The Body, The Dark Half, Needful Things, Bag of Bones and Lisey’s Story all originate here. Dreamcatcher and Insomnia are both situated in Derry, the second

most-commonly

TODAY'S NONSENSE, TOMORROW'S LANGUAGE: MADE-UP WORDS FROM When J. R. R. Tolkien invented the word “tween,” he definitely didn’t have Justin Bieber in mind. Although it has become synonymous with glitter-coated cellphone cases, excessive use of the word “like” and awful boy-band music, Tolkien’s original definition from The Fellowship of the Ring was “the irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three.” SIMPLE REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD READ PHYSICAL Physical books make you read closer. A survey of 113 participants found that people who read on e-readers tend to take a lot of shortcuts. They often skim and read with the intention of leeching information as quickly — rather than as accurately — as possible. When reading off screens, people are less likely to have metacognitive THE BIGGEST LITTLE-KNOWN INFLUENCE ON H. P. LOVECRAFT A natural conservative with a predilection for outmoded settings brimming with historical consequence, James was an obvious influence on the Anglophilic H. P. Lovecraft, who, in a 1935 letter to science fiction author Emil Petaja, summarized James as a unique talent who SOME OF THE WORST THINGS THAT NORMAN MAILER EVER SAID Some of the Worst Things That Norman Mailer Ever Said. When answering the question “Can bad people be great writers?” there is perhaps no better subject to consider than Norman Mailer, whose first novel The Naked and the Dead was published on this day 66 years ago. During his life, Mailer published more than 30 books, won two Pulitzer LA CATEDRAL: A VISIT TO PABLO ESCOBAR'S SELF THE TEN COOLEST EASTERN-EUROPEAN BOOKS YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OFAUTHOR:

JEFFREY ZUCKERMAN

The Ten Coolest Eastern-European Books You've Never Heard Of. By Jeffrey Zuckerman. Black Balloon has just published Robert Perišić’s Our Man in Iraq, translated by Will Firth. Despite its title, the novel takes place almost entirely in Croatia and feels so deeply Eastern European in sensibility that I found myself jotting

down other books

10 INSTANCES OF LITERARY CENSORSHIP 1. Shakespeare. Thomas Bowdler is so famous for his censorship that “bowdlerizing” has become a pejorative for the act of neutering texts. In 1807, Bowdler, an English physician, published The Family Shakspeare (sic; it was later changed to its proper spelling), an expurgated tome featuring 24 vanilla versions of Shakespeare’s plays. In Bowdler’s rendering, exclamations of “God THE 10 GREATEST AUDIOBOOK NARRATORS: AN INSOMNIAC'S GUIDE The 10 Greatest Audiobook Narrators: An Insomniac's Guide. By Jake Flanagin. Some people use white noise machines. Some use earplugs. I, on the other hand, cannot fall asleep without an audiobook. Albeit more benign than an Ambien addiction, it’s pretty terrible. Without the voice of a BAFTA-winning British stage actor murmuring softly from CHEKHOV OF THE SUBURBS: 5 GREAT JOHN CHEEVER WORKS YOU CAN John Cheever helped to define suburban disillusionment through his short stories. He stripped the suburbs of the 1950s and ‘60s in such a terrifying and true manor that even today Mad Men continues to make allusions to his work and takes clear influence from his portrait of the time.. But if you’ve watched Mad Men and haven’t read Cheever, or if you just want to enjoy his work, here are THE HIDDEN CONNECTIONS IN STEPHEN KING’S UNIVERSE It by Stephen King (via Redesign Revolution) Castle Rock is an imaginary town in Maine which serves as the setting for a ton of supernatural incidents. Cujo, The Dead Zone, The Body, The Dark Half, Needful Things, Bag of Bones and Lisey’s Story all originate here. Dreamcatcher and Insomnia are both situated in Derry, the second

most-commonly

TODAY'S NONSENSE, TOMORROW'S LANGUAGE: MADE-UP WORDS FROM When J. R. R. Tolkien invented the word “tween,” he definitely didn’t have Justin Bieber in mind. Although it has become synonymous with glitter-coated cellphone cases, excessive use of the word “like” and awful boy-band music, Tolkien’s original definition from The Fellowship of the Ring was “the irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three.” SIMPLE REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD READ PHYSICAL Physical books make you read closer. A survey of 113 participants found that people who read on e-readers tend to take a lot of shortcuts. They often skim and read with the intention of leeching information as quickly — rather than as accurately — as possible. When reading off screens, people are less likely to have metacognitive THE BIGGEST LITTLE-KNOWN INFLUENCE ON H. P. LOVECRAFT A natural conservative with a predilection for outmoded settings brimming with historical consequence, James was an obvious influence on the Anglophilic H. P. Lovecraft, who, in a 1935 letter to science fiction author Emil Petaja, summarized James as a unique talent who SOME OF THE WORST THINGS THAT NORMAN MAILER EVER SAID Some of the Worst Things That Norman Mailer Ever Said. When answering the question “Can bad people be great writers?” there is perhaps no better subject to consider than Norman Mailer, whose first novel The Naked and the Dead was published on this day 66 years ago. During his life, Mailer published more than 30 books, won two Pulitzer TODAY'S NONSENSE, TOMORROW'S LANGUAGE: MADE-UP WORDS FROM When J. R. R. Tolkien invented the word “tween,” he definitely didn’t have Justin Bieber in mind. Although it has become synonymous with glitter-coated cellphone cases, excessive use of the word “like” and awful boy-band music, Tolkien’s original definition from The Fellowship of the Ring was “the irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three.” THE 10 GREATEST AUDIOBOOK NARRATORS: AN INSOMNIAC'S GUIDE The 10 Greatest Audiobook Narrators: An Insomniac's Guide. By Jake Flanagin. Some people use white noise machines. Some use earplugs. I, on the other hand, cannot fall asleep without an audiobook. Albeit more benign than an Ambien addiction, it’s pretty terrible. Without the voice of a BAFTA-winning British stage actor murmuring softly from MEET SOMEONE WHO ROBS DRUG DEALERS So it turns out the neighbor lady called the cops about the attempted break-in. The cops came, walked around her house and see her neighbor’s broken window as well. They see all the guns he has lying around, so they arrest the kid. They search the house, they find SOME OF THE WORST THINGS THAT NORMAN MAILER EVER SAID When answering the question “Can bad people be great writers?” there is perhaps no better subject to consider than Norman Mailer, whose first novel The Naked and the Dead was published on this day 66 years ago. During his life, Mailer published more than 30 books, won two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award, and found his place in the cannon as one of America’s great authors. 6 WAYS TO FIGHT TROLLS INSTEAD OF STARVING THEM Troll-Fighting Tactic #2: Cite Real-Life Sources. As I’ve said, Man Boobz’s original tagline was “I mock it,” but that was hardly the only tool we used.Pecunium agreed with this strategy, but he also was particularly good at unleashing the Credible Hulk and fighting facts pulled straight from trolls’ butts with real sources. 5 WRITERS WHO SUFFERED FROM MENTAL ILLNESSES & THE IMPACT Some of the first research connecting creativity with mental illness was conducted in 1987, when Dr. Nancy Andreasen of the University of Iowa noticed a higher occurrence of bipolar disorder in study participants from the Iowa Writers Workshop than in a control group. A decade later, Dr. Arnold Ludwig of the University of Kentucky examined the relationship between mental illness and cultural BROOKLYN'S FINEST: THE EIGHT BEST EGG CREAMS IN NEW YORK Best Overall: Ray’s Candy Store (113 Avenue A, Manhattan) As if it wasn’t enough that Ray’s also has beignets, soft serve, and Belgian fries, they also happen to have the best egg cream in the city. Don’t be put off by its unassuming appearance or the humble storefront entrance. I took the paper cup, walked out, took a sip, and

then

10 CLASSIC NOVELS SUMMED UP IN A SINGLE SENTENCE Plus, it’s just really fun. Here’s a few classic novels all summed up in a (very long) sentence a piece: 1. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo. A poor ol’ deformed bell-ringer falls for an enchanting gypsy lady, but so does everyone else, including the bell-ringer’s deranged adoptive father 10 ESSENTIAL BOOKS ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST THAT YOU DIDN’T 1. Maus by Art Spiegelman . American cartoonist Spiegelman interviewed his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor; thus, this graphic novel was born. One of the boldest choices and most salient features of the book is that it uses different animals to represent humans: Germans as cats, Jews as mice, and non-Jewish Poles as pigs. I LOVE, THEREFORE I AM: 5 PHILOSOPHERS ON ROMANCE 1. Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard grappled with love most prominently in Works of Love, writing about agape, or unconditional love. For Kierkegaard, the Christian conception of agape is the only true love, for Christian love reveals “that it has within itself the truth of the eternal.” Ever the existentialist, Kierkegaard goes on to write, “All other love, whether humanly speaking it LA CATEDRAL: A VISIT TO PABLO ESCOBAR'S SELF-DESIGNEDSEE MORE ON

AIRSHIPDAILY.COM

10 INSTANCES OF LITERARY CENSORSHIP 1. Shakespeare. Thomas Bowdler is so famous for his censorship that “bowdlerizing” has become a pejorative for the act of neutering texts. In 1807, Bowdler, an English physician, published The Family Shakspeare (sic; it was later changed to its proper spelling), an expurgated tome featuring 24 vanilla versions of Shakespeare’s plays. In Bowdler’s rendering, exclamations of “God THE TEN COOLEST EASTERN-EUROPEAN BOOKS YOU'VE NEVER HEARD Czech Republic Bohumil Hrabal, Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age Translated from Czech by Michael Henry Heim. There aren’t many novels that consist of just one sentence, and even fewer that pull off the trick successfully, but Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age is an object lesson for the not-so-advanced in age. The whole book consists of a narrator “palavering,” endlessly 10 SUCCESSFUL WRITERS WHO HAD DISABILITIES 4. Christy Brown. Brown, an Irish author, suffered from cerebral palsy and was only able to write or type with the toes of his left foot. His memoir My Left Foot details his life with the disorder and became a literary sensation and 1989 film starring Daniel Day Lewis. Brown’s success is a prime example of not letting society’s preconceived notions about disabilities set you back. 10 ESSENTIAL BOOKS ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST THAT YOU DIDN’T 1. Maus by Art Spiegelman . American cartoonist Spiegelman interviewed his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor; thus, this graphic novel was born. One of the boldest choices and most salient features of the book is that it uses different animals to represent humans: Germans as cats, Jews as mice, and non-Jewish Poles as pigs. REAL WORLD REVISITED To celebrate the latest season of their Real World franchise, MTV recently aired a “retro Real World” marathon, starting with every episode of the original season of the show from 1992.I haven’t watched any recent iterations of Real World, partially because of the overwhelming amount of reality TV that is pumped directly into my television.. But beyond just a personal OD on “reality CHEKHOV OF THE SUBURBS: 5 GREAT JOHN CHEEVER WORKS YOU CAN John Cheever helped to define suburban disillusionment through his short stories. He stripped the suburbs of the 1950s and ‘60s in such a terrifying and true manor that even today Mad Men continues to make allusions to his work and takes clear influence from his portrait of the time.. But if you’ve watched Mad Men and haven’t read Cheever, or if you just want to enjoy his work, here are BROOKLYN'S FINEST: THE EIGHT BEST EGG CREAMS IN NEW YORK Most Enthusiastic: Brooklyn Farmacy (513 Henry Street, Brooklyn). For this experiment, I avoided diners that brought to mind the faux-retro glitziness of Wowsville, USA from Ghost World.At first glance, Farmacy may came off as such a place, but their sheer enthusiasm for egg creams won me over (not to mention their décor is just adorable rather than aggressively adorable). 10 HARD-BOILED LESSONS FROM 10 NOIR FILMS “I don’t think I’ll have to kill her. Just slap that pretty face into hamburger meat, that’s all.” In The Killing, George Peatty (Elisha Cook Jr.) gets involved with Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) and a group that plans to have a day at the races — stealing $2 million from the track.When George’s wife Sherry (Marie Windsor) catches wind of the money he might get, she snoops on a SOME OF THE WORST THINGS THAT NORMAN MAILER EVER SAID When answering the question “Can bad people be great writers?” there is perhaps no better subject to consider than Norman Mailer, whose first novel The Naked and the Dead was published on this day 66 years ago. During his life, Mailer published more than 30 books, won two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award, and found his place in the cannon as one of America’s great authors. LA CATEDRAL: A VISIT TO PABLO ESCOBAR'S SELF-DESIGNEDSEE MORE ON

AIRSHIPDAILY.COM

10 INSTANCES OF LITERARY CENSORSHIP 1. Shakespeare. Thomas Bowdler is so famous for his censorship that “bowdlerizing” has become a pejorative for the act of neutering texts. In 1807, Bowdler, an English physician, published The Family Shakspeare (sic; it was later changed to its proper spelling), an expurgated tome featuring 24 vanilla versions of Shakespeare’s plays. In Bowdler’s rendering, exclamations of “God THE TEN COOLEST EASTERN-EUROPEAN BOOKS YOU'VE NEVER HEARD Czech Republic Bohumil Hrabal, Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age Translated from Czech by Michael Henry Heim. There aren’t many novels that consist of just one sentence, and even fewer that pull off the trick successfully, but Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age is an object lesson for the not-so-advanced in age. The whole book consists of a narrator “palavering,” endlessly 10 SUCCESSFUL WRITERS WHO HAD DISABILITIES 4. Christy Brown. Brown, an Irish author, suffered from cerebral palsy and was only able to write or type with the toes of his left foot. His memoir My Left Foot details his life with the disorder and became a literary sensation and 1989 film starring Daniel Day Lewis. Brown’s success is a prime example of not letting society’s preconceived notions about disabilities set you back. 10 ESSENTIAL BOOKS ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST THAT YOU DIDN’T 1. Maus by Art Spiegelman . American cartoonist Spiegelman interviewed his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor; thus, this graphic novel was born. One of the boldest choices and most salient features of the book is that it uses different animals to represent humans: Germans as cats, Jews as mice, and non-Jewish Poles as pigs. REAL WORLD REVISITED To celebrate the latest season of their Real World franchise, MTV recently aired a “retro Real World” marathon, starting with every episode of the original season of the show from 1992.I haven’t watched any recent iterations of Real World, partially because of the overwhelming amount of reality TV that is pumped directly into my television.. But beyond just a personal OD on “reality CHEKHOV OF THE SUBURBS: 5 GREAT JOHN CHEEVER WORKS YOU CAN John Cheever helped to define suburban disillusionment through his short stories. He stripped the suburbs of the 1950s and ‘60s in such a terrifying and true manor that even today Mad Men continues to make allusions to his work and takes clear influence from his portrait of the time.. But if you’ve watched Mad Men and haven’t read Cheever, or if you just want to enjoy his work, here are BROOKLYN'S FINEST: THE EIGHT BEST EGG CREAMS IN NEW YORK Most Enthusiastic: Brooklyn Farmacy (513 Henry Street, Brooklyn). For this experiment, I avoided diners that brought to mind the faux-retro glitziness of Wowsville, USA from Ghost World.At first glance, Farmacy may came off as such a place, but their sheer enthusiasm for egg creams won me over (not to mention their décor is just adorable rather than aggressively adorable). 10 HARD-BOILED LESSONS FROM 10 NOIR FILMS “I don’t think I’ll have to kill her. Just slap that pretty face into hamburger meat, that’s all.” In The Killing, George Peatty (Elisha Cook Jr.) gets involved with Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) and a group that plans to have a day at the races — stealing $2 million from the track.When George’s wife Sherry (Marie Windsor) catches wind of the money he might get, she snoops on a SOME OF THE WORST THINGS THAT NORMAN MAILER EVER SAID When answering the question “Can bad people be great writers?” there is perhaps no better subject to consider than Norman Mailer, whose first novel The Naked and the Dead was published on this day 66 years ago. During his life, Mailer published more than 30 books, won two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award, and found his place in the cannon as one of America’s great authors. LA CATEDRAL: A VISIT TO PABLO ESCOBAR'S SELF-DESIGNED The Honey Valley rests southeast of Medellin in the mountainous outskirts of the neighboring town, Envigado. Tracts of native forest still cover large sections of the area, although new home construction has felled much during the past few years. 10 ESSENTIAL BOOKS ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST THAT YOU DIDN’T 1. Maus by Art Spiegelman . American cartoonist Spiegelman interviewed his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor; thus, this graphic novel was born. One of the boldest choices and most salient features of the book is that it uses different animals to represent humans: Germans as cats, Jews as mice, and non-Jewish Poles as pigs. 10 HARD-BOILED LESSONS FROM 10 NOIR FILMS “I don’t think I’ll have to kill her. Just slap that pretty face into hamburger meat, that’s all.” In The Killing, George Peatty (Elisha Cook Jr.) gets involved with Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) and a group that plans to have a day at the races — stealing $2 million from the track.When George’s wife Sherry (Marie Windsor) catches wind of the money he might get, she snoops on a TODAY'S NONSENSE, TOMORROW'S LANGUAGE: MADE-UP WORDS FROM When J. R. R. Tolkien invented the word “tween,” he definitely didn’t have Justin Bieber in mind. Although it has become synonymous with glitter-coated cellphone cases, excessive use of the word “like” and awful boy-band music, Tolkien’s original definition from The Fellowship of the Ring was “the irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three.” 10 GREAT NOVELS THAT WERE ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AS PULP 4. The Maltese Falcon. Arguably the most famous of Hammett works, The Maltese Falcon was originally published in Black Mask magazine in 1930. It is often cited as the industry mold for hard-boiled mystery lit, and protagonist Sam Spade is the godfather of noir detectives.What started as a piece of pulpy crime fiction came to be known as one of the best English-language novels of the 20th THE BIGGEST LITTLE-KNOWN INFLUENCE ON H. P. LOVECRAFT M. R. James was an English author, scholar and inspiration to Lovecraft, though the world may have forgotten it. Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) was the type of gentleman one doesn’t meet anymore: the very definition of the reserved, erudite scholar who was out of step and out of time. H. G. WELLS’S PREDICTIONS: THE RIGHT, THE WRONG AND THE UGLY In an odd twist, Wells the man (if not Wells the author) was often a champion of science and technology in governance. He connects these ideas to socialism in Experiment in Autobiography (1935), describing his socialist awakening as a result of recognizing the “incompatibility of the great world order foreshadowed by scientific and industrial progress with the existing political and social LITTLE DID WE KNOW: THE ORIGINS OF LITERARY CLICHES “It was a Dark and Stormy Night” “It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.” WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY? A QUIZ ON QUOTES FROM FAMOUS 21. ''I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so THE WORST KIND OF AUTOBIO: “TAKIN’ BACK MY NAME,” IKE Before I describe Ike Turner’s Takin’ Back My Name–and I will do so briefly, because I respect you–it’s important to note that how much I love the movie What’s Love Got To Do With It.Ignoring all the other reasons to worship Tina Turner, from her enormous talent to her ability to wear nude hose to her own autobiography, I, Tina (co-written with Kurt Loder, before he became a born LA CATEDRAL: A VISIT TO PABLO ESCOBAR'S SELF 10 INSTANCES OF LITERARY CENSORSHIP 1. Shakespeare. Thomas Bowdler is so famous for his censorship that “bowdlerizing” has become a pejorative for the act of neutering texts. In 1807, Bowdler, an English physician, published The Family Shakspeare (sic; it was later changed to its proper spelling), an expurgated tome featuring 24 vanilla versions of Shakespeare’s plays. In Bowdler’s rendering, exclamations of “God THE 10 GREATEST AUDIOBOOK NARRATORS: AN INSOMNIAC'S GUIDE The 10 Greatest Audiobook Narrators: An Insomniac's Guide. By Jake Flanagin. Some people use white noise machines. Some use earplugs. I, on the other hand, cannot fall asleep without an audiobook. Albeit more benign than an Ambien addiction, it’s pretty terrible. Without the voice of a BAFTA-winning British stage actor murmuring softly from THE TEN COOLEST EASTERN-EUROPEAN BOOKS YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF The Ten Coolest Eastern-European Books You've Never Heard Of. By Jeffrey Zuckerman. Black Balloon has just published Robert Perišić’s Our Man in Iraq, translated by Will Firth. Despite its title, the novel takes place almost entirely in Croatia and feels so deeply Eastern European in sensibility that I found myself jotting

down other books

10 SUCCESSFUL WRITERS WHO HAD DISABILITIES 4. Christy Brown. Brown, an Irish author, suffered from cerebral palsy and was only able to write or type with the toes of his left foot. His memoir My Left Foot details his life with the disorder and became a literary sensation and 1989 film starring Daniel Day Lewis. Brown’s success is a prime example of not letting society’s preconceived notions about disabilities set you back. THE HIDDEN CONNECTIONS IN STEPHEN KING’S UNIVERSE It by Stephen King (via Redesign Revolution) Castle Rock is an imaginary town in Maine which serves as the setting for a ton of supernatural incidents. Cujo, The Dead Zone, The Body, The Dark Half, Needful Things, Bag of Bones and Lisey’s Story all originate here. Dreamcatcher and Insomnia are both situated in Derry, the second

most-commonly

I LOVE, THEREFORE I AM: 5 PHILOSOPHERS ON ROMANCE 1. Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard grappled with love most prominently in Works of Love, writing about agape, or unconditional love. For Kierkegaard, the Christian conception of agape is the only true love, for Christian love reveals “that it has within itself the truth of the eternal.” Ever the existentialist, Kierkegaard goes on to write, “All other love, whether humanly speaking it 6 WAYS TO FIGHT TROLLS INSTEAD OF STARVING THEM Troll-Fighting Tactic #2: Cite Real-Life Sources. As I’ve said, Man Boobz’s original tagline was “I mock it,” but that was hardly the only tool we used.Pecunium agreed with this strategy, but he also was particularly good at unleashing the Credible Hulk and fighting facts pulled straight from trolls’ butts with real sources. 10 ESSENTIAL BOOKS ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST THAT YOU DIDN’T 1. Maus by Art Spiegelman . American cartoonist Spiegelman interviewed his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor; thus, this graphic novel was born. One of the boldest choices and most salient features of the book is that it uses different animals to represent humans: Germans as cats, Jews as mice, and non-Jewish Poles as pigs. THE BIGGEST LITTLE-KNOWN INFLUENCE ON H. P. LOVECRAFT A natural conservative with a predilection for outmoded settings brimming with historical consequence, James was an obvious influence on the Anglophilic H. P. Lovecraft, who, in a 1935 letter to science fiction author Emil Petaja, summarized James as a unique talent who LA CATEDRAL: A VISIT TO PABLO ESCOBAR'S SELF 10 INSTANCES OF LITERARY CENSORSHIP 1. Shakespeare. Thomas Bowdler is so famous for his censorship that “bowdlerizing” has become a pejorative for the act of neutering texts. In 1807, Bowdler, an English physician, published The Family Shakspeare (sic; it was later changed to its proper spelling), an expurgated tome featuring 24 vanilla versions of Shakespeare’s plays. In Bowdler’s rendering, exclamations of “God THE 10 GREATEST AUDIOBOOK NARRATORS: AN INSOMNIAC'S GUIDE The 10 Greatest Audiobook Narrators: An Insomniac's Guide. By Jake Flanagin. Some people use white noise machines. Some use earplugs. I, on the other hand, cannot fall asleep without an audiobook. Albeit more benign than an Ambien addiction, it’s pretty terrible. Without the voice of a BAFTA-winning British stage actor murmuring softly from THE TEN COOLEST EASTERN-EUROPEAN BOOKS YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF The Ten Coolest Eastern-European Books You've Never Heard Of. By Jeffrey Zuckerman. Black Balloon has just published Robert Perišić’s Our Man in Iraq, translated by Will Firth. Despite its title, the novel takes place almost entirely in Croatia and feels so deeply Eastern European in sensibility that I found myself jotting

down other books

10 SUCCESSFUL WRITERS WHO HAD DISABILITIES 4. Christy Brown. Brown, an Irish author, suffered from cerebral palsy and was only able to write or type with the toes of his left foot. His memoir My Left Foot details his life with the disorder and became a literary sensation and 1989 film starring Daniel Day Lewis. Brown’s success is a prime example of not letting society’s preconceived notions about disabilities set you back. THE HIDDEN CONNECTIONS IN STEPHEN KING’S UNIVERSE It by Stephen King (via Redesign Revolution) Castle Rock is an imaginary town in Maine which serves as the setting for a ton of supernatural incidents. Cujo, The Dead Zone, The Body, The Dark Half, Needful Things, Bag of Bones and Lisey’s Story all originate here. Dreamcatcher and Insomnia are both situated in Derry, the second

most-commonly

I LOVE, THEREFORE I AM: 5 PHILOSOPHERS ON ROMANCE 1. Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard grappled with love most prominently in Works of Love, writing about agape, or unconditional love. For Kierkegaard, the Christian conception of agape is the only true love, for Christian love reveals “that it has within itself the truth of the eternal.” Ever the existentialist, Kierkegaard goes on to write, “All other love, whether humanly speaking it 6 WAYS TO FIGHT TROLLS INSTEAD OF STARVING THEM Troll-Fighting Tactic #2: Cite Real-Life Sources. As I’ve said, Man Boobz’s original tagline was “I mock it,” but that was hardly the only tool we used.Pecunium agreed with this strategy, but he also was particularly good at unleashing the Credible Hulk and fighting facts pulled straight from trolls’ butts with real sources. 10 ESSENTIAL BOOKS ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST THAT YOU DIDN’T 1. Maus by Art Spiegelman . American cartoonist Spiegelman interviewed his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor; thus, this graphic novel was born. One of the boldest choices and most salient features of the book is that it uses different animals to represent humans: Germans as cats, Jews as mice, and non-Jewish Poles as pigs. THE BIGGEST LITTLE-KNOWN INFLUENCE ON H. P. LOVECRAFT A natural conservative with a predilection for outmoded settings brimming with historical consequence, James was an obvious influence on the Anglophilic H. P. Lovecraft, who, in a 1935 letter to science fiction author Emil Petaja, summarized James as a unique talent who 22 OUT-OF-PRINT J.D. SALINGER STORIES YOU CAN STILL READ A teenager reads The Catcher in the Rye, then decides to read Franny and Zooey, then wants to read everything ever written by J.D. Salinger — only to discover that there’s nothing left after Nine Stories and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.Such “Salingermania” may be a cliche, but it is so for a reason: Salinger’s work has been able to speak to the CHEKHOV OF THE SUBURBS: 5 GREAT JOHN CHEEVER WORKS YOU CAN John Cheever helped to define suburban disillusionment through his short stories. He stripped the suburbs of the 1950s and ‘60s in such a terrifying and true manor that even today Mad Men continues to make allusions to his work and takes clear influence from his portrait of the time.. But if you’ve watched Mad Men and haven’t read Cheever, or if you just want to enjoy his work, here are 6 WAYS TO FIGHT TROLLS INSTEAD OF STARVING THEM Troll-Fighting Tactic #2: Cite Real-Life Sources. As I’ve said, Man Boobz’s original tagline was “I mock it,” but that was hardly the only tool we used.Pecunium agreed with this strategy, but he also was particularly good at unleashing the Credible Hulk and fighting facts pulled straight from trolls’ butts with real sources. THE BIGGEST LITTLE-KNOWN INFLUENCE ON H. P. LOVECRAFT A natural conservative with a predilection for outmoded settings brimming with historical consequence, James was an obvious influence on the Anglophilic H. P. Lovecraft, who, in a 1935 letter to science fiction author Emil Petaja, summarized James as a unique talent who TODAY'S NONSENSE, TOMORROW'S LANGUAGE: MADE-UP WORDS FROM When J. R. R. Tolkien invented the word “tween,” he definitely didn’t have Justin Bieber in mind. Although it has become synonymous with glitter-coated cellphone cases, excessive use of the word “like” and awful boy-band music, Tolkien’s original definition from The Fellowship of the Ring was “the irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three.” 10 CLASSIC NOVELS SUMMED UP IN A SINGLE SENTENCE Plus, it’s just really fun. Here’s a few classic novels all summed up in a (very long) sentence a piece: 1. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo. A poor ol’ deformed bell-ringer falls for an enchanting gypsy lady, but so does everyone else, including the bell-ringer’s deranged adoptive father SOME OF THE WORST THINGS THAT NORMAN MAILER EVER SAID When answering the question “Can bad people be great writers?” there is perhaps no better subject to consider than Norman Mailer, whose first novel The Naked and the Dead was published on this day 66 years ago. During his life, Mailer published more than 30 books, won two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award, and found his place in the cannon as one of America’s great authors. CAN YOU IDENTIFY THE HANDWRITING OF THESE 12 FAMOUS In defense of handwriting and in honor of National Ballpoint Pen Day, here’s a list of 12 authors’ penmanship in all its glory. To get you started, here’s a list of all the authors whose samples are included: Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Lewis Carroll, Fyodor Dostoevsky, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, Mary THE YELLOW PERIL: ASIAN INVASIONS IN THE RACIST LITERATURE For the most part, American Yellow Peril stories and novels tended to be unimpressive Dr. Fu-Manchu rip-offs. In the pre-comics world of pulp vigilantes, Asian villains were de rigeur for any self-respecting crime fighter. The Spider had The Red Mandarin, while The Shadow had the dreaded Shiwan Khan. Although they were a staple of the interwar IT WAS A DIFFERENT TIME: 15 WILDLY OFFENSIVE QUOTES FROM The first great gift for a man is to be healthy and the second, maybe greater, is to fall with healthy women. You can always trade one healthy woman in on another. But start with a sick woman and see where you get. . Anyway let’s leave the subject. If you leave LA CATEDRAL: A VISIT TO PABLO ESCOBAR'S SELF 10 INSTANCES OF LITERARY CENSORSHIP 1. Shakespeare. Thomas Bowdler is so famous for his censorship that “bowdlerizing” has become a pejorative for the act of neutering texts. In 1807, Bowdler, an English physician, published The Family Shakspeare (sic; it was later changed to its proper spelling), an expurgated tome featuring 24 vanilla versions of Shakespeare’s plays. In Bowdler’s rendering, exclamations of “God CHEKHOV OF THE SUBURBS: 5 GREAT JOHN CHEEVER WORKS YOU CAN John Cheever helped to define suburban disillusionment through his short stories. He stripped the suburbs of the 1950s and ‘60s in such a terrifying and true manor that even today Mad Men continues to make allusions to his work and takes clear influence from his portrait of the time.. But if you’ve watched Mad Men and haven’t read Cheever, or if you just want to enjoy his work, here are THE TEN COOLEST EASTERN-EUROPEAN BOOKS YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF The Ten Coolest Eastern-European Books You've Never Heard Of. By Jeffrey Zuckerman. Black Balloon has just published Robert Perišić’s Our Man in Iraq, translated by Will Firth. Despite its title, the novel takes place almost entirely in Croatia and feels so deeply Eastern European in sensibility that I found myself jotting

down other books

BROOKLYN'S FINEST: THE EIGHT BEST EGG CREAMS IN NEW YORK Most Enthusiastic: Brooklyn Farmacy (513 Henry Street, Brooklyn). For this experiment, I avoided diners that brought to mind the faux-retro glitziness of Wowsville, USA from Ghost World.At first glance, Farmacy may came off as such a place, but their sheer enthusiasm for egg creams won me over (not to mention their décor is just adorable rather than aggressively adorable). REAL WORLD REVISITED To celebrate the latest season of their Real World franchise, MTV recently aired a “retro Real World” marathon, starting with every episode of the original season of the show from 1992.I haven’t watched any recent iterations of Real World, partially because of the overwhelming amount of reality TV that is pumped directly into my television.. But beyond just a personal OD on “reality TODAY'S NONSENSE, TOMORROW'S LANGUAGE: MADE-UP WORDS FROM When J. R. R. Tolkien invented the word “tween,” he definitely didn’t have Justin Bieber in mind. Although it has become synonymous with glitter-coated cellphone cases, excessive use of the word “like” and awful boy-band music, Tolkien’s original definition from The Fellowship of the Ring was “the irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three.” 10 ESSENTIAL BOOKS ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST THAT YOU DIDN’T 1. Maus by Art Spiegelman . American cartoonist Spiegelman interviewed his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor; thus, this graphic novel was born. One of the boldest choices and most salient features of the book is that it uses different animals to represent humans: Germans as cats, Jews as mice, and non-Jewish Poles as pigs. THE WORST KIND OF AUTOBIO: “TAKIN’ BACK MY NAME,” IKE The Worst Kind Of Autobio: “Takin’ Back My Name,” Ike Turner. By Sarah Bennett. View fullsize. Ike Turner made great music, but he makes himself look like a raging asshole in his own autobiography. Before I describe Ike Turner’s Takin’ Back My Name– and I will do so briefly, because I respect you–it’s important to note that

how

SOME OF THE WORST THINGS THAT NORMAN MAILER EVER SAID When answering the question “Can bad people be great writers?” there is perhaps no better subject to consider than Norman Mailer, whose first novel The Naked and the Dead was published on this day 66 years ago. During his life, Mailer published more than 30 books, won two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award, and found his place in the cannon as one of America’s great authors. LA CATEDRAL: A VISIT TO PABLO ESCOBAR'S SELF 10 INSTANCES OF LITERARY CENSORSHIP 1. Shakespeare. Thomas Bowdler is so famous for his censorship that “bowdlerizing” has become a pejorative for the act of neutering texts. In 1807, Bowdler, an English physician, published The Family Shakspeare (sic; it was later changed to its proper spelling), an expurgated tome featuring 24 vanilla versions of Shakespeare’s plays. In Bowdler’s rendering, exclamations of “God CHEKHOV OF THE SUBURBS: 5 GREAT JOHN CHEEVER WORKS YOU CAN John Cheever helped to define suburban disillusionment through his short stories. He stripped the suburbs of the 1950s and ‘60s in such a terrifying and true manor that even today Mad Men continues to make allusions to his work and takes clear influence from his portrait of the time.. But if you’ve watched Mad Men and haven’t read Cheever, or if you just want to enjoy his work, here are THE TEN COOLEST EASTERN-EUROPEAN BOOKS YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF The Ten Coolest Eastern-European Books You've Never Heard Of. By Jeffrey Zuckerman. Black Balloon has just published Robert Perišić’s Our Man in Iraq, translated by Will Firth. Despite its title, the novel takes place almost entirely in Croatia and feels so deeply Eastern European in sensibility that I found myself jotting

down other books

BROOKLYN'S FINEST: THE EIGHT BEST EGG CREAMS IN NEW YORK Most Enthusiastic: Brooklyn Farmacy (513 Henry Street, Brooklyn). For this experiment, I avoided diners that brought to mind the faux-retro glitziness of Wowsville, USA from Ghost World.At first glance, Farmacy may came off as such a place, but their sheer enthusiasm for egg creams won me over (not to mention their décor is just adorable rather than aggressively adorable). REAL WORLD REVISITED To celebrate the latest season of their Real World franchise, MTV recently aired a “retro Real World” marathon, starting with every episode of the original season of the show from 1992.I haven’t watched any recent iterations of Real World, partially because of the overwhelming amount of reality TV that is pumped directly into my television.. But beyond just a personal OD on “reality TODAY'S NONSENSE, TOMORROW'S LANGUAGE: MADE-UP WORDS FROM When J. R. R. Tolkien invented the word “tween,” he definitely didn’t have Justin Bieber in mind. Although it has become synonymous with glitter-coated cellphone cases, excessive use of the word “like” and awful boy-band music, Tolkien’s original definition from The Fellowship of the Ring was “the irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three.” 10 ESSENTIAL BOOKS ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST THAT YOU DIDN’T 1. Maus by Art Spiegelman . American cartoonist Spiegelman interviewed his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor; thus, this graphic novel was born. One of the boldest choices and most salient features of the book is that it uses different animals to represent humans: Germans as cats, Jews as mice, and non-Jewish Poles as pigs. THE WORST KIND OF AUTOBIO: “TAKIN’ BACK MY NAME,” IKE The Worst Kind Of Autobio: “Takin’ Back My Name,” Ike Turner. By Sarah Bennett. View fullsize. Ike Turner made great music, but he makes himself look like a raging asshole in his own autobiography. Before I describe Ike Turner’s Takin’ Back My Name– and I will do so briefly, because I respect you–it’s important to note that

how

SOME OF THE WORST THINGS THAT NORMAN MAILER EVER SAID When answering the question “Can bad people be great writers?” there is perhaps no better subject to consider than Norman Mailer, whose first novel The Naked and the Dead was published on this day 66 years ago. During his life, Mailer published more than 30 books, won two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award, and found his place in the cannon as one of America’s great authors. H. G. WELLS’S PREDICTIONS: THE RIGHT, THE WRONG AND THE UGLY H. G. Wells’s Predictions: The Right, the Wrong and the Ugly. A lifelong student with an interest in all things, Herbert George Wells’s research gave him an insider’s view of everything from weapons to household appliances. The author proved to be at the forefront of history, even if many of his ideas weren’t actualized

until decades

SOME OF THE WORST THINGS THAT NORMAN MAILER EVER SAID When answering the question “Can bad people be great writers?” there is perhaps no better subject to consider than Norman Mailer, whose first novel The Naked and the Dead was published on this day 66 years ago. During his life, Mailer published more than 30 books, won two Pulitzer Prizes and a National Book Award, and found his place in the cannon as one of America’s great authors. THE HIDDEN CONNECTIONS IN STEPHEN KING’S UNIVERSE It by Stephen King (via Redesign Revolution) Castle Rock is an imaginary town in Maine which serves as the setting for a ton of supernatural incidents. Cujo, The Dead Zone, The Body, The Dark Half, Needful Things, Bag of Bones and Lisey’s Story all originate here. Dreamcatcher and Insomnia are both situated in Derry, the second

most-commonly

PROLIFIC POLYGLOTS: AUTHORS WHO WROTE IN A SECOND LANGUAGE Yann Martel. Martel is the French Canadian author of Life of Pi, a novel written originally in English. The author was raised in Montreal, Canada (among other places), a city where English and French coexist on a daily basis. While French is his mother tongue, he says English "gives me a sufficient distance to write." 10 CLASSIC NOVELS SUMMED UP IN A SINGLE SENTENCE Plus, it’s just really fun. Here’s a few classic novels all summed up in a (very long) sentence a piece: 1. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo. A poor ol’ deformed bell-ringer falls for an enchanting gypsy lady, but so does everyone else, including the bell-ringer’s deranged adoptive father LITTLE DID WE KNOW: THE ORIGINS OF LITERARY A pamphlet from around the same time begins a digression “Once upon a time (to use the old English style),” suggesting that writers in the 1690s already believed this to be a very old fashioned and quaint construction. Samuel Goldwyn, lover of the oxymoron, once said, “Let's have some new cliches.”. There's an honest sentiment behind

that.

10 ESSENTIAL BOOKS ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST THAT YOU DIDN’T 1. Maus by Art Spiegelman . American cartoonist Spiegelman interviewed his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor; thus, this graphic novel was born. One of the boldest choices and most salient features of the book is that it uses different animals to represent humans: Germans as cats, Jews as mice, and non-Jewish Poles as pigs. WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY? A QUIZ ON QUOTES FROM FAMOUS 21. ''I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so SIMPLE REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD READ PHYSICAL Physical books make you read closer. A survey of 113 participants found that people who read on e-readers tend to take a lot of shortcuts. They often skim and read with the intention of leeching information as quickly — rather than as accurately — as possible. When reading off screens, people are less likely to have metacognitive IT WAS A DIFFERENT TIME: 15 WILDLY OFFENSIVE QUOTES FROM The first great gift for a man is to be healthy and the second, maybe greater, is to fall with healthy women. You can always trade one healthy woman in on another. But start with a sick woman and see where you get. . Anyway let’s leave the subject. If you leave Surveying literature, art & culture from an altitude of 5,000 feet while traveling at 53 miles per hour

Close

* New

* Popular

* Longform

Main Menu

_SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST!

_

Featured

Eat Prey Drug: Summerland Escaping a catastrophic blizzard to take peyote in the Arizona desert, Paul Kwiatkowski concludes his investigation into alternate perceptions of consciousness. -------------------------

Featured

Dec 10, 2014

Eat Prey Drug: Summerland

Dec 10, 2014

Escaping a catastrophic blizzard to take peyote in the Arizona desert, Paul Kwiatkowski concludes his investigation into alternate perceptions of consciousness.

Dec 10, 2014

Dec 10, 2014

Eat Prey Drug: Willow Lake

Dec 10, 2014

A Queens park equidistant from JFK and LaGuardia airports becomes the site of a mind-bending phenomenon.

Dec 10, 2014

Nov 7, 2014

Eat Prey Drug: Witness

Nov 7, 2014

Arriving at Lily Dale, the capital of American Spiritualism and “the town that talks to the dead.”

Nov 7, 2014

Oct 10, 2014

Eat Prey Drug: Sweet Charity

Oct 10, 2014

Coming out of isolation and starting over in Wisconsin.

Oct 10, 2014

Sep 26, 2014

Eat Prey Drug: Motel 6

Sep 26, 2014

A pit-stop in South Dakota reconnects friends, memories and everyone with a camera phone.

Sep 26, 2014

Sep 12, 2014

Eat Prey Drug: Summer Chills

Sep 12, 2014

On the road in Idaho and Montana, a cross-country investigation into alternate perceptions of consciousness takes a devastating detour

through Haiti.

Sep 12, 2014

Aug 28, 2014

Eat Prey Drug: Wetiko

Aug 28, 2014

Continuing his investigation into alternate perceptions of consciousness, author Paul Kwiatkowski confronts a psycho-spiritual

disease.

Aug 28, 2014

Aug 16, 2014

Eat Prey Drug: The Hollow Earth

Aug 16, 2014

A quest for health, peace and morphine leads to an even stranger journey into a community that believes the Earth is hollow.

Aug 16, 2014

-------------------------

Eat Prey Drug: Motel 6 A pit-stop in South Dakota reconnects friends, memories and everyone with a camera phone.

Flash Boom

Experiencing the atomic bombing of Japan through the film _Pikadon_. La Catedral: A Visit to Pablo Escobar's Self-Designed Prison Take a tour of the compound which the infamous Cartel boss called home while "incarcerated" in the early '90s.

The Fires This Time

Art and arson on Detroit's East Side. -------------------------

The Airship

Eat Prey Drug: Summerland Escaping a catastrophic blizzard to take peyote in the Arizona desert, Paul Kwiatkowski concludes his investigation into alternate perceptions of consciousness. The Biggest Little-Known Influence on H. P. Lovecraft M. R. James was an English author, scholar and inspiration to Lovecraft, though the world may have forgotten it. The Sun Don't Shine on a Moonshine Still Get a bleary-eyed view of moonshining from a modern day bootlegger. “The Classics” are Not Timeless Readers should embrace classic literature, but we shouldn’t worship

The Classics.

The Great Authorial Hook-Up Chart Get from Oscar Wilde to Roald Dahl in 12 romances. An Underground Railroad for Modern-Day Slaves A nun in New York City helps trafficked women find freedom. -------------------------

Featured

Fat Man and Little Boy Fat Man searches for his brother, Little Boy, amongst the wreckage of World War II Japan. We Were Flying to Chicago On the road home, two cousins share an experience that pierces through the routine to reveal what's truly important.

Nine Rabbits

Manda recalls her childhood escapades at a Bulgarian seaside monastery, replete with severe nuns, theological debate and mouthwatering tomato soup. (Recipe included!) -------------------------

×

×

* About

* Shop

* Privacy Policy

A Black Balloon Publication ©