May 25, 2021, 1:49pm Exciting news for Ragtime fans, or fans of glamorous apartments: the pre-war Midtown East co-op where E.L. Doctorow wrote his final three novels is on sale for $2.1 million. The 3000-square-foot apartment contains Doctorow’s office; two en-suite bedrooms with walk-in closets; a library; a dining room; a living room with fireplace;
Literature
May 25, 2021, 2:46pm Some literary award news from across the pond: the winners of this year’s Jhalak Prize—an annual award for a British or British-resident writer of color—have been revealed. At last night’s virtual ceremony, Ugandan novelist and short story writer Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi—the winner of the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and 2018 winner
‘The Metamorphosis’ is a short story (sometimes classed as a novella) by the Czech-born German-language author Franz Kafka (1883-1924). It is his best-known shorter work, published in German in 1915, with the first English translation appearing in 1933. ‘The Metamorphosis’ has attracted numerous interpretations, so it might be worth probing this fascinating story more closely.
May 24, 2021, 1:03pm Looks like Boris Johnson was inspired by Shakespeare’s quarantine productivity: according to The Sunday Times, Dominic Cummings—former aide to the prime minister, Brexit leader, and COVID-positive road-tripper—plans to claim in a COVID-related parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday that Johnson skipped numerous critically important meetings on the coronavirus response because he was working
May 24, 2021, 1:55pm In the popular imagination, the LARPer is a figure of fun: a nerd transplanted from their Dungeons & Dragons game into a real-life clearing, dressed in wizard robes or elf ears, possibly a wand or foam sword in hand. But to stop there would be to lose the LARPer’s attention to
‘O for a Muse of fire’: so begins the Prologue to William Shakespeare’s Henry V. The Prologue is spoken by the Chorus, and the speech sets the scene for the historical drama that will follow; it also makes reference to the very theatre in which Henry V was first performed, which makes it doubly notable
Ivy possesses some curious symbolism in literature, religion, and myth. Its associations with immortality and romantic loyalty are firmly established, but are worth exploring in more detail, with reference to some specific examples from the world of literature. Ivy can sometimes be poisonous, and sometimes medicinal, but its cultural significance and literary symbolism are a
‘Aladdin and the Magic Lamp’ is the most famous story from the Arabian Nights collection of stories, also known as the 1,001 Nights. However, the story’s origins are surprising, and in fact for many centuries it wasn’t part of the Arabian Nights at all. But before we come to the question of textual analysis or
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle delves into the misconceptions surrounding one of the most famous pronouncements on patriotism Samuel Johnson (1709-84) was a curious man. The one thing everyone knows him for, compiling the first English dictionary, is something he didn’t do: dictionaries of the English language were well-established
May 20, 2021, 3:28pm Unflinching: This book is written in the present tense, which I told the author multiple times was a choice I disagreed with in our writing workshop. Do you belong to a writing workshop? Oh, you really must. They’re fantastic. Bracing: You ever just really miss the sea? I like reading books by
May 20, 2021, 12:55pm Exciting news—or dispiriting news for would-be collectors: a Columbia Law School textbook once owned by late Supreme Court justice and legal titan Ruth Bader Ginsberg sold yesterday to an anonymous bidder for $18,125 in Heritage Auctions’ Manuscripts Auction. The textbook in question, The French Legal System: An Introduction to Civil Law
‘My Country Right or Left’ is a 1940 essay by George Orwell, in which he reflects on his childhood memories of the First World War and outlines why he supports the Second World War, which had broken out the year before. However, as with many of Orwell’s essays, he makes some surprising statements in the
May 19, 2021, 4:01pm Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the 1619 Project and winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur fellowship, has been hired for a five-year term as a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media—despite having been pursued by the school for its Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism,
May 19, 2021, 12:52pm Today, it was announced that Shola von Reinhold and Jacaranda Books have won the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses, which rewards outstanding literary fiction published by UK- and Ireland-based presses with no more than five full-time employees. Von Reinhold’s debut novel Lote, for which von Reinhold and Jacaranda Books
Probably the most famous legend to feature a love potion, the story of Tristan and Isolde (or Iseult, as her name is rendered in some versions of the myth) is one of the most celebrated Celtic legends along with the stories of King Arthur. Indeed, Tristan and Isolde are sometimes associated with the Arthurian legend,
May 18, 2021, 12:44pm What do we talk about when we talk about limericks? When we consider the limerick, we might think of our elementary school poetry unit, or Edward Lear, who popularized the form in the 19th century with A Book of Nonsense, or the ever-popular man from Nantucket. But someone we don’t think
May 18, 2021, 1:07pm Booksellers at Los Angeles’s indie bookstore Skylight Books announced today that they have unionized. The Skylight Bookseller Union will be affiliated with the over-700,000-member Communications Workers of America Union. Wrote the Skylight Bookseller Union on Instagram, “The booksellers of Skylight Books have unionized! In honor of our beloved coworker Ian Irizarry,
May 18, 2021, 1:38pm This past year has brought a groundswell of labor activism—including in bookselling, where a number of stores have voted in favor of unionizing as a way of securing fair wages and treatment for workers. Below is an ongoing list of bookstores whose employees have voted to unionize (which may include some