I’m coming down with a cold or something, so in lieu of the great-grandfather story I’d planned to tell, here’s a shot of Grandpa, my dad’s father, standing with the rest of the committee to welcome Mary Ann Mobley, Miss America 1959, home to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. (Larger version here.) Grandpa stands to Ms. Mobley’s right, wearing sunglasses.
James Wolcott, in Cape May this month, has been pondering shits, savagery, and Auchincloss, Katha Pollitt, and more, more, more.
Previously unheard Graham Greene radio interviews shed new light on his work — and his eye strain and opium use. (Thanks, Dave Lull.)
The love letters to independent bookstores continue. Below Joel Turnipseed, author of Baghdad Express: A Gulf War Memoir and blogger at Hotel Zero, praises St. Paul’s Micawber’s. Micawber’s, the last indie bookstore in the Twin Cities not owned by a millionaire best-selling author, is a little gem of a shop that has no need to rely on seven-figure advances . . .