Gore Vidal, a preeminent American writer, passed away this week. In his honor I have cobbled together some essential reading about the great writer. Of course, there are some other articles that would make perfect summer reading too. Hope you enjoy these.

• Esquire‘s Mike Sager visits Gore Vidal and hangs out with the man for a day. But that isn’t the only piece worth reading in Esquire. Here is another one that sums up what Vidal had learned in his life. Esquire called Gore Vidal “the America Roman.”
• The Paris Review digs deep into its archives and comes up with this profile of Vidal from 1974. 
• What does science have to do with Speedos and Olympic records? Apparently a lot, writes, Smithsonian‘s Jim Morrison via Scientific American.
• Oakland, the last refuge of radical America: The other city by the bay is often overlooked by those of us in the city. But it is a hot bed and home to Oakland Athletics — for now.
• It is summer and every man, woman and child should have a pair of boat shoes. Here is a little something about boat shoes past and present.
• The New York Times‘ David Carr looks at the the news business and chastises it for not being as hard on itself that it is on other industries. Read Journalism misdeeds get a glance in the mirror.
• Manipulating the messaging is the new frontier in the ongoing war, writes Smithsonian magazine.

I am off next week and as a result I won’t be sending the “7 stories to read this weekend” on Aug. 11, 2012.