The World As I Found It

A big, gripping novel about the tortured philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein may sound oxymoronic, but Bruce Duffy pulls it off (assisted by the presence of Bertrand Russell, that old swashbuckler), mixing gossip, history, and plenty of ideas into a compulsively readable fiction.

May 20: Blue jeans celebrate their unofficial 140th birthday today, the dry goods merchant Levi Strauss and the tailor Jacob Davis receiving a patent on May 20, 1873 for "a new article of manufacture, a pair of pantaloons having the…

Ethan Rutherford and Matt Burgess (Dogfight: A Love Story) on the writing of Rutherford's surreal and fiercely funny story collection The Peripatetic Coffin

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