Friday High Five: Judy Blume and Lena Dunham read; Siri on Her

BACK

Lena Dunham and Judy Blume’s combined reading list

Two women you’d absolutely want reading tips from have combined their readings tips, in an outtake from a Believer interview between Lena Dunham and Judy Blume. Blume says Rachel Kushner’s Telex from Cuba inspired the novel she’s writing now (and Dunham recommends The Flamethrowers). Blume’s novel-for-adults, Summer Sisters, has inspired one of the central concepts of Girls (the complexities of female friendship) and they both stand behind Lolita.

None

What does Siri think of Spike Jonze’s Her?

What does iPhone’s digital assistant, Siri, think of Samantha, the artificial intelligence voiced by Scarlett Johansson in Spike Jonze’s Her? ‘In my opinion, she gives artificial intelligence a bad name.’ In the film, Joaquin Phoenix’s character falls in love with his computer.

None

Morrissey becomes a novelist

It seems that his memoir becoming an instant classic (because he insisted on publishing it under the Penguin Classics imprint) has given Morrissey a taste for the literary life. He is now writing a novel. ‘In 2013 I published my Autobiography and it has been more successful than any record I have ever released, so, yes, I am midway through my novel,’ he told his fansite True to You during a Q&A. ‘I have my hopes.’

None

Out of Time

A pair of Norwegian designers have invented a wrist watch that signals time passing, but doesn’t actually give you the time. It’s a blank coloured disk worn strapped to your wrist that vibrates every five minutes, to signal time passing. ‘Durr is a watch designed to draw attention to that slippery disconnect between time as it passes and how we perceive it passing,’ say the designers. Could be useful for lawyers, and others who need to record their time in tiny intervals. For the rest of us, not so much …

None

Death in the wild

Christopher McCandless - the free spirit who abandoned his family and possessions to trek into the wild - has been immortalised in Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild and Sean Penn’s film of the same name. Since he became a pop culture icon, a river of fans have followed McCandless’s path through Alaska, in a pilgrimage to the bus where he died. Some have died on the journey.