* The Shit Test Encyclopedia; note as always that linking does not imply endorsement and that often the most interesting pieces are ones in which I do not find plausible many claims. Adam Phillips’s book Becoming Freud falls into this category, though it is the only book by or about Freud that I’ve found palatable.
* “Demography Is Rewriting Our Economic Destiny,” an underappreciated and significant issue; this can be read profitably in tandem with Bryan Caplan’s Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think.
* “Decades-long Arrest Wave Vexes Employers: Companies Struggle to Navigate Patchwork of Rules That Either Encourage or Deter Hiring Americans With Criminal Records;” if a third of Americans have arrest records something is seriously wrong with our society.
* “The Innovative Art of the Book-Preserving Underground: How do illustrations for new editions of Fahrenheit 451 or Breakfast at Tiffany’s stay fresh? Artists for The Folio Society remain true to the text.” I’ve bought Folio Society books.
* “Americans aren’t getting married, and researchers think porn is part of the problem,” which must be read skeptically.
* “The Henry Ford of Books,” about James Patterson, who is not good at sentences but perhaps he knows as much: “he is philosophical about his critics, in particular critics of his craft. Patterson decided long ago that he’d rather be a successful popular novelist than a mediocre literary one.” I have often been told that I should be writing nonfiction, and perhaps my own smaller circle of critics are correct. I’ve started a couple of Patterson books without finishing them.
* “How to be an expert in a changing world,” which, like many Graham essays, is about more than it appears to be about; this for instance applies to artists: “Good new ideas come from earnest, energetic, independent-minded people.”
* “The Birdcage: How Hollywood’s toxic (and worsening) addiction to franchises changed movies forever in 2014.” Here is me on Birdman and note too that the author is nostalgic for a time when movies were central to the culture, which hasn’t been true for at least a decade.
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