• Did Mary Magdalen get pegged as a hooker because the church couldn’t stomach the New Testament’s most independent woman as Christ’s favorite disciple?

• Theo Tait says “it’s a shock, on reading Denis Demonpion’s biography, to learn quite how much of Houellebecq’s life has been thrust raw — though often distorted — into his novels.” (Dana’s got your U.S. Houellebecq update.)

• Rimbaud, Turgenev, Rilke, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Robert Louis Stevenson, Isak Dinesen, Djuna Barnes: literary eminences, disastrous individuals?

• Paul Beatty discusses his new black humor anthology on Talk of the Nation. (Excerpts from the introduction and the anthologized works are available online.)

• Read and swap books with strangers for free. See also Paperbackswap. Or check online to see if your local library has the title you want. (Via the Telegraph, Nick T., and Scribbling Woman, respectively.)