The Picador Book Room

By the very talented Franco Matticchio.  

(via: Toad Hall Book Store)

We’re having a Hilary Mantel e-Book sale! Read what the New York Review of Books called a “brilliant pastiche of Swift and Joyce.”

Pretty sure René Descartes would’ve agree.  

(via: Book Riot)

Today’s Page Six features a famous Prince and his Parisian prostitute:

“It was, of course, the lady’s performance in bed which was the most desirable and significant feature of the prince’s stay in Paris,” writes Andrew Rosein The Woman Before Wallis: Prince Edward, the Paris Courtesan and the Perfect Murder.

In honor of Children’s Book Week, here’s a photo of an awesome kid.

(Source: unapproachableblackchicks)

Interpreting the stoop books of Brooklyn:

“I like to think this book is the sign of a heartfelt and long-planned conversion to vegetarianism by a middle-aged optometrist named Richard. It’s not so much the ethical concerns of meat, though he’s not blind to those, but Richard has just reached a certain age where he feels he needs to work harder to maintain the same level of health he’s been taking for granted, and giving up meat is a part of that larger struggle.

But this is Brooklyn. No, some kid bought this book ironically and got bored of it, is all.” 

The Curious Incidence of Dogs in Publishing

[via]

(via: Book Riot)

Bookmarked: Pages Being Shared in the Picador Office

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.” James is watching David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water” commencement speech.

Shailyn is sharing New Inquiry’s piece on the history of Facebook’s “like.” But why “Like”? Why not “Love,” or “I agree,” or “This is awesome”?

Speaking as someone who emerged from high school without ever having read The Great Gatsby, Madeline got a kick out of these imagined alternate endings for the novel. The College Lit Mag Ending—too real.

Speaking of Gatsby, Angela found these tattoos. 

Darin is reading Cathleen Schine’s new book Fin & Lady, coming soon from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. “Very fun! Very Auntie Mame.” Also, all this Gatsby hoopla is making him finally read Everybody Was So Young by Amanda Vail, about Gerald and Sara Murphy hanging out with F. Scott Fitzgerald in the French Riviera. 

Gabrielle suggests two podcasts this week. The first is Marc Maron on The Nerdist because, seriously, why wouldn’t you listen? The other is a smart discussion on the future of libraries in the digital age. 

A nation of junkies went cold turkey, and PJ is reading up on how the Huxleyan developments that scientists have made trying to artificially curb drug addiction have just caused wholly new, sometimes even more pervasive problems. 

Anthony Bourdain reads Edward St. Aubyn before bed.