The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted 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 Ms. Cerand at lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to publication. . . .
Nabokov wanted his last, unfinished work destroyed. Should his son get out the matches? (Two views.)
So smart and engaging is Jennifer Michael Hecht’s Doubt: A History that it’ll be twice as thick and cumbersome to lug around once I’m finished reading. I keep turning down the bottom corner of every other page. James Hynes, an atheist and fellow fan of Twain’s Letters from the Earth, calls the book a “wonderful popular history of skepticism, from . . .
Scott Horton sees the influence of Dickens’ Bleak House in a minor Melville story and beyond.