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 . . .
At Whitehead’s One-Story reading tonight (2/8), the Rye Whiskey Sazerac (with a dash of absinthe) is on special.
The NGA offers an online history of the unfinished print from Rembrandt to Cassatt & Gauguin.
Texas Inmate No. 1385412 ordered a copy of Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives. When it arrived, the novel was rerouted to a relative in Austin, after a prison inspector determined that it might “encourage homosexual or deviant criminal sexual behavior” and be “detrimental to the offender’s rehabilitation.” The disqualifying passage, which appears on Page 39, describes an oral-sex contest in . . .
“My father showed me his library, which seemed to me infinite…” Habitus translates a 1984 Borges interview. (Via.)