The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication, with the date in the . . .
Tragedy moved Amy Hempel to write. When she was 19, “her mother killed herself and within a year her mother’s sister did the same.”
Some schoolkids petitioned their representative to declare Moby-Dick Massachusetts’ state book. The Boston Globe suggests other possibilities.
In Zadie Smith’s “Hanwell Senior,” published in The New Yorker this week, a father gives his young son some penny bangers and then disappears.
Postal regulators have accepted a Time Warner proposal that would increase the burden on indie publishers while cutting costs for large magazines. (Via.)