At Salon, Thomas Frank talks to Barbara Ehrenreich about her new book, Living With a Wild God, “a memoir with a point,” as Frank dubs it, that is both intellectual autobiography and spiritual inquiry—unusual, maybe, for a self-described atheist. In an interview with Harper’s, Ehrenreich explains the evolution of her reaction to an experience she now describes as mystical: “It took me decades to say, ‘No, I saw something. There was something other than myself there. And I’m going to take that seriously as some sort of empirical evidence, or clue, or glimpse.’” If you’re in New York tonight, visit the Union Square Barnes & Noble to celebrate the book’s release and see Ehrenreich in conversation with John Hockenberry.
Sarah Leonard and Kate Losse introduce the new issue of Dissent, which is all about technology: “It has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between digital and non-digital activities. . . . The universal digital turn does not mean our communications have become false, but they are shaped by motives that are often hidden.”
Speaking of technology, the historic Library of Alexandria is |http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/culture/2014/04/library-alexandria-egypt-digital-texts.html#|digitizing ancient texts|.
Still speaking of technology, The New York Times is very excited about its new mobile app, which Capital New York describes as offering a “carefully curated feed of select Times content plucked by a team of more than a dozen journalists.”
The Academy of American Poets is bringing poetry back to magazines and newspapers. The eighty-year-old organization has made a deal with the Hearst Corporation’s King Features to syndicate its Poem-a-Day feature, starting April 14.