On the Books: 'New Yorker' archives available for free online, for now

The New Yorker has relaunched its website with a swanky new design (no more pagination!). In the fall, the magazine will introduce a new paywall system that’s similar to that of The New York Times. But for now, everything in its archives since 2007 are available to the public. To highlight those archives, they’ll be posting collections of different journalistic genres; profiles and love stories are already up. [The New Yorker]

David Orr reviews James Franco’s new poetry collection, Directing Herbert White, in the New York Times Book Review, taking his celebrity and academic credentials into account. “I’m obliged here to note that this actor is well acquainted with the educational system, having apparently attended graduate programs at Yale, Columbia, New York University, Brooklyn College, Warren Wilson College, the Rhode Island School of Design, Le Cordon Bleu, Quantico, Hogwarts (Ravenclaw), the Vaganova School of Russian Ballet and the Jedi Academy.” [The New York Times]

The dude who got gored by a bull after writing a book on how to not get gored by a bull wrote an op-ed saying he will run with bulls again. Good luck. (Recommended related reading: Karen Russell on Spain’s one-eyed matador.) [The Washington Post]

An exploration of why WWI produced some of the century’s greatest literature. [The Globe and Mail]

Director’s sometimes get to release a “director’s cut” of their movies on DVD, so why don’t writers publish writer’s cuts of their books? [The New Republic]