Read the New, Digital, Annotated Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Tag this latest edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland "literary coolness:"

From Medium:

An annotated edition — twelve Lewis Carroll scholars taking a chapter each. A joint project from The Public Domain Review and Medium, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the classic tale.

Here's an example from Chapter 1...

"The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well."

...with an annotation by Zoe Jaques:

"‘[N]ot a moment to think’: Carroll’s repeated references to Alice’s lack of reflection on her entry to Wonderland recalls both the impulsive nature of childhood and also the undirected and non-reflective manner of dreaming."

Read the text, complete with annotations, here on Medium. And definitely check out Arthur Rackhman's beautiful illustrations.

This Week's Wanna Read: The Speechwriter. Read an Excerpt.

The Washington Post says it "will become a classic on political communication." The New York Times describes it as "a nice little examination of the anguish of writing" and "a marvelously entertaining book." The Speechwriter is "a welcome change of pace and scope" writes The Politics Reader.  I wanna read it, writes Amy.

I enjoy reading books about politics that take us inside the facade of press conferences, campaigning, and today's ever-present idea of "branding" and image-making. I l want insight into how human beings finding themselves in positions of power and/or influence make decisions that affect thousands or millions of people. How do those powerful people talk to each other? How do you make friends in that arena, or do you just make connections? What drives a person toward elected office or to work for an elected official? How do you live your own life when this happens? Can you? Is corruption or lying or obfuscating or covering-up just part of that life, no matter how intact your moral compass is when you begin?

I have a lot of questions. Also, I think The Speechwriter, while being a revealing take on the inner sanctum of a governor's office, will also be just plain fun to read. I'll find out.

Fortunately for us, Literary Hub has an excerpt from the book. Read it here.

This Week's Wanna Read: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

This book is so hot right now. People who haven't read it are talking about it, that's how hot, how relevant, how urgent, how beautifully written this book is. I'm here talking about it, like I did in that previous sentence, and I haven't read it. For now, I'm accepting that I will find the book to meet all of those adjectives, because the consensus is just that strong.

If Toni Morrison agrees to endorse your book and describes it as "required reading"--then refers to the writer as the successor to James Baldwin--it's going to gain a lot of attention.

I found some interesting, lesser-read reviews online, including one from the blog "The Christian Century." The writer is a Christian, and speaks against the comments of religious people who have derided the book because they find Coates' atheism an insurmountable obstacle to engaging with his message:

New Short Story by F. Scott Fitzgerald Published in The Strand Magazine

The Strand has just published a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald titled "Temperature." Until recently, Fitzgerald's story about Emmet Monsen, a good-looking Hollywood actor whose health, career, and personal life are in decline, lay undiscovered in the Fitzgerald archives at Princeton University. Andrew Gulli, editor of The Strand who scours archives for lost short stories by famous authors, hit the jackpot. Gulli describes the story for The Seattle Times:

John Ashbery is Eighty-Effin'-Eight And He Wrote Another Book

Creepy picture? Or the creepiest picture?

The great, renowned, Pulitzer Prize-National Book Award-Robert Frost Medal-etc.etc.-winning America poet John Ashbery turned eighty-eight last week. Eighty-effin'-eight, guys. And he just wrote another book of poetry. Another effin' book. He's already published twenty-something books.

LitHub published a poem, "The Upright Piano," from his new book Breezeway. It's the best kind of Ashbery: full of imagery, asks a lot of questions, knows itself, invites you in, but still makes you think about what the hell is going on. Here's the first stanza:

Did we once go to bed together?
And how was it? I need your help on this one.
Good thing it happened, too—
Intelligence without understanding
is like constant frost, pounding at the temples
until its bargain is overseen. I kid you not.

I know Ashbery's style is controversial and hyper-analyzed and over-scholarized (?) etc. but I just like him. I think he's funny and wise. After losing Mark Strand last year, I'm just really glad this poet is still walking the planet.

This Week's Wanna Read: Irritable Hearts by Mac McClelland

When Mac McClelland returns home after witnessing horrifying events in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, she begins to experience strange and disturbing psychological symptoms, among them dissociation, nightmares, and hallucinations. After being diagnosed with PTSD, she researches the disease while trying to heal, traveling the world, and falling in love.

Now that sounds like a story. Read an excerpt of Irritable Hearts here.