This morning, hip literary journal Electric Literature launched their newest project on Tumblr: Recommended Reading , a free digital magazine that will publish one fantastic short story a week, each one a personal recommendation from one of their favorite authors or editors, who will each write an accompanying paragraph or two about why the work they chose is so great. “In the age of distraction and content overload,” explains the press release, “personal recommendations… have the power to cut through the noise.” Maybe so — after all, we can’t say we’re not excited about the upcoming guest editors, fine folks like Aimee Bender, Nathan Englander, and Michael Cunningham. Who better to recommend great literature than those who create it?
The inaugural issue, curated by Halimah Marcus and Benjamin Samuel, the project’s editors proper, features a story by Ben Marcus and an accompanying Single Sentence Animation by Edwin Rostron — which yes, is just what it sounds like. So what do you think — will you be adding Recommended Reading to your reading list? We know we will.