The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30 pm, 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 . . .
Recently at Twitter: new DFW, Barthelme bio, Spark & Dexedrine. Separating those items from these is getting cumbersome.
Zoë Heller’s The Believers ponders the chasm between those who are fundamentally skeptical and those drawn to systems of belief. See also.
My current contribution to NPR’s Books We Like is devoted to Kitty Burns Florey’s Script & Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting: At five, teary-eyed, I announced to my mother that I never wanted to grow up, because adults’ handwriting was ugly. When she asked what I meant, I pointed to her signature — a towering and illegible series . . .
Bookforum‘s “Cultural Obituaries” discussion series begins at the New York Public Library on April 9, with Making Sense of Black Nationalism in the Obama Era, an event organized around a forthcoming piece by Victor LaValle. Yesterday I asked my friend Chris Lehmann — co-editor of the magazine and a fellow LaValle fan — if he could tell me a little . . .