January 12, 2007
Short takes
Publishing predictions for 2007. Le Figaro ranks French novelists of 2006.
January 11, 2007
Short takes
Brian Boyd encourages the literary world to evolve in this long but thoughtful essay. After yesterday’s Costa Awards, The Guardian sings John Haynes’s praises. Just as The Independent sings William […]
January 11, 2007
What Is It about the Liberal Arts?
While I have not had the experience myself, other professors I know report being approached by parents of graduating seniors with the pressing question, Now that my daughter (or son) […]
January 10, 2007
Short takes
The Decibel Award: Discrimination against whites or really strict submission guidelines? J.K. Rowling’s agent offers a ?1,500 alternative to the Sobol Award. For creative writing students only; as far as […]
January 9, 2007
Short Takes
“Book Club has nailed the lie that daytime TV is for dimwits and bored housewives. We demonstrated that our viewers are intelligent people who relish the opportunity to read and […]
January 8, 2007
Short Takes
“Looking at his close readings, one finds that they are not really close at all, but simple assertions about Eliot’s lines bringing the world ‘indelibly before us’ and being ‘drenched […]
January 7, 2007
About Hemingway…
It seems I keep finding myself in the position of defending Ernest Hemingway against (among other things) charges of mediocrity. Not that Papa especially needs my help; his prose is […]
January 6, 2007
The Echo Speaker
Readers and writers who have considered (or are devotees of) speech-recognition software will want to peek at Richard Powers’s essay “How to Speak a Book,” in this Sunday’s New York […]
January 5, 2007
Short Takes
“Say what you will about The New York Times, but covering the obvious is something the publication never fears.” Also on a digital note: building a career in the digital […]
January 4, 2007
Short Takes
Literary snobs–straw men? Language Log clarifies a recent BBC News article. “Heroism might not be the first virtue you would expect to find in the author of The Tale of […]
January 3, 2007
Short Takes
“In the 1995 Halloween episode of the award-winning animated sitcom The Simpsons, two-dimensional Homer Simpson accidentally jumps into the third dimension. During his journey in this strange world, geometric solids […]
January 2, 2007
The Virtues of Browsing
It’s just below 40 and the temperature outside has begun its evening decline at the same time that a full moon rises over Cambridge, where I’ve been spending much of […]