Without ever checking, I had filed as malicious gossip the idea that Aldous Huxley trawled the Encyclopedia Britannica for small talk. But no: it was his favourite holiday reading, which even with a "stray volume" or two of "the half-size 12th edition" suggests an age of more spacious luggage allowances.

• The New Yorker's Rebecca Mead on her five-yearly readings of Middlemarch, and how it changes with age. She appears to be growing out of Dorothea Brooke and into Fred Vincy, which is probably an improvement.

• Faber's editorial director on Gordon Burn. (Via.)

• The Millions declares some interests.

• The Three Little Pigs get an architectural remix.

• Not yet tired of arguing about lists? Then Mark Athitakis has a book-length one for you.