How Sober Should a Writer Be?

Drinking in America has been on the decline. Myriad articles report this, some trendy, some clinical. [...] The first place I noticed this change was in confessional nonfiction. [...] Then I began to notice the same phenomenon in fiction, except in reverse. [...] Refreshingly, onto our sober bar cart lands On Booze, a slim showcase of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most spirited pieces, which will be reissued next month. [...] But there’s nothing quite like binging from the source. For all of Dorothy Parker’s quips about cocktails and Charles Bukowski’s bromides about beer, Fitzgerald’s prose alcohol content remains unparalleled—the irony being that he was a lightweight, forever trying to keep pace with Hemingway. As the critic John Lanchester wrote of him, “If ever there was someone who simply should not have drunk at all, it was Fitzgerald.” The prolific author’s life ended tragically, at forty-four, but damn if he couldn’t make a glamorous time seem regular. Sloane Crosley, The Yale Review

Why Diet Coke From McDonald's Is Just Better

Magical origins aside, I wondered if there was more traditional scholarly support for why McDonald’s Diet Coke is objectively better than others? Cursory internet research reveals that several key factors play into how McDonald’s Diet Coke distinguishes itself, including but not limited to the composition, a top-notch filtration system and temperature control.

When it comes quality, the nuances are in the nitty-gritty. To delve into the finer points of the McDonald’s Diet Coke popularity (and the reasons for this phenomenon) I consulted with scientists, engineers, current and former McDonald’s employees, and one of the world’s leading experts on carbonation, Brown University professor Roberto Zenit.

The conclusion? Every step of the way, McDonald’s goes the extra mile to ensure the best Diet Coke experience. Fundamentally, it comes down to a superior solute (syrup) to solvent (water) mixture to yield the solution (har) that is Diet Coke. Joanna O'Leary, HuffPost

quel che ho sempre amato dell'America è che qualsiasi cosa possa diventare oggetto di studio, anche nelle grandi università.  

Political extremists brains

When people with extreme political views see politically charged content, their brains process the information in the same way — even when their views are at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum.

That’s according to a new study led by psychological and cognitive researchers and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The research provides psychological evidence for the theory of horseshoe politics, which holds that the views of people at the far left and far right of the political spectrum resemble each other more closely than they do people with moderate views. Corrie Pikul, News from Brown

ah, ah, ah! Lo immaginavo... 

Inependent Presses

Publishing’s Big Five (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster) still dominate bestseller charts and prize lists: this year’s Booker longlist features five titles from Penguin alone. But independent presses are increasingly moving into the spotlight.

Sheffield-based And Other Stories is one such example, having won this year’s International Booker prize with Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi. It was “instructive” that this year’s shortlist was entirely indies, says the press’s publicist Michael Watson. Indies are “frequently the ones publishing the most interesting and exciting writers and books in innovative ways, often in the face of enormous challenges”.

You may recognise the stripped-back design of And Other Stories books, with a black and white text-based cover, launched in 2023. Distinctive, homogenous covers are a running theme across many indie presses: Fitzcarraldo Editions publishes its fiction in an International Klein Blue cover, its nonfiction in white. While this perhaps simply comes down to financial constraints, the streamlining means titles are instantly recognisable for readers browsing bookshops.

[...]

The Southbank Centre’s first Indie Night will take place in February next year, hosted by Okechukwu Nzelu, author of The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney, and Eliza Clark, author of Boy Parts. The series aims to celebrate indie presses and their authors. “Independent publishing is the nutrient base from which everything positive and progressive grows in UK literature,” says Max Porter, resident artist at the Southbank. “Without our indie presses we have no counter culture.”

If you’re wanting to dig into some exciting work by UK indies, Bogen suggests looking out for Fosse’s first novel since winning the Nobel, Vaim, translated by Damion Searls and publishing next month, while Watson nominates Dreaming of Dead People by Rosalind Belben, published in August (which “rivals anything by Virginia Woolf”, according to Melissa Harrison’s Guardian review).