by Alex Shephard

Fiction Weekly (August 19)

by

The week’s best online fiction, with recommendations from FictionDaily.

Introducing The Classical

by

Modeled after The Awl, The Classical aims to establish “a running, wide-ranging conversation between us and our readers about baseball, basketball, soccer, football and fighting, and about things that aren’t sports, too.”

How Much Do Interns Earn?

by

All this talk about money and publishing made me wonder, “What about the people at the bottom? What about the interns? How much do they make?”

Crystal Ballin’

by

A few thoughts on Tom Lutz’s excellent essay about the future of criticism.

Young Critics: Michele Filgate

by

Some of the best books that have ever been written are being edited or published as I type this. There are plenty of writers willing to take risks–to write books that speak to their own emotional truths. The future classics are being conceived of or worked on or published every year.

Borders, R.I.P.

by

In which the bookseller chain Borders announces that it will liquidate its assets and I examine the consequences/halfheartedly apologize for stealing books.

Let’s Save J.G. Ballard’s House

by

J.G. Ballard’s house, where he lived and worked from 1960-2009, is up for sale. Let’s buy it and turn it into a museum or something.

On Humiliation and Failure

by

Yesterday we learned that fiction makes us better people. Today we would like to examine some of the things fiction doesn’t do: pay our bills, keep us warm at night, prevent us from doing stupid things, block out unfortunate memories, cure the sinus infection we have had for 7 weeks, absolve our sins, stop genocide.

Deleted Scenes: Arthur Phillips

by

Deleted Scenes is a way to feature interesting parts of interviews didn’t make the cut. In this installment, Arthur Phillips talks about reading Moby-Dick for the first time, dated comedy, and “the most modern, ironic, humorous comic character anywhere in Shakespeare.”

Let’s Prove Malcolm Gladwell’s New Age Mumbo Jumbo is New Age Mumbo Jumbo

by

Malcolm Gladwell argues that success can be determined by a simple formula: s/a (if s is how many sweaters you own and a is how amusing your anecdotes are on a scale of 1-10.)