While I focus on things other than blogging this month, I’m running a series on independent bookstores. Below New School MFA student Lorraine Martindale praises Caveat Emptor of Bloomington, Indiana. I love everything about this place. The mildly cranky, white-haired, bearded guy and the smart, cheerful woman who have both run it for years, who always have intelligent comments about . . .
In the new Open Letters: rehabilitating James Fenimore Cooper after Twain’s skewering, and reading Lem’s Solaris as translated from the French.
A linguist studying the origins of language looks to animal communication for clues. (See also.)
Twain’s Is He Dead?, an 1898 play about “starving artists who stage the death of their mentor to increase the value of his work,” debuts on Broadway this winter.
Melville House’s Summer of Love sale gives you a copy of Meet The Beatles — and me an excuse to mention Derrida’s last interview, and his comments on love.