Literature

In the second half of May of 1940, my grandfather Gaston Messud, a 34-year-old French Naval officer reporting to the Deuxième Bureau in Paris from Salonica on the movements of the Italians, all too aware of their imminent entry into the war on the Axis side (this occurred on June 10), and anxious, too, about
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The coronavirus pandemic is dramatically disrupting not only our daily lives but society itself. This show features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the deeper economic, political, and technological consequences of the pandemic. It’s our new daily podcast trying to make longterm sense out of the chaos of today’s global
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Although scientists now consider the list of senses to be much longer than the proverbial five – things such as balance and thermoception are often counted as ‘senses’ now too – it’s true that we still talk of ‘the five senses’: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. If you want to explore more ‘sensory poems’,
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TODAY: In 1927, Peter Matthiessen is born. You’ve (almost) made it through another indistinguishable week! Why not celebrate with round nine of our personalized quarantine book recommendations? | Lit Hub “How painful it is to think that the world might crumble.” Claire Messud on her family’s WWII correspondence. | Lit Hub History Ridiculously rich people: they’re not
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TODAY: In 1906, Henrik Ibsen dies. If you’re not already rereading your favorite books all the time, Natalie Jenner recommends it. | Lit Hub Gabrielle Bellot on the disconcerting parallels between “The Machine Stops,” E.M. Forster’s only foray into sci-fi, and our current socially distanced reality. | Lit Hub The only successful coup in the US began as a campaign to
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In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle goes on his travels to Taormina in Sicily, where D. H. Lawrence lived One tends to associate D. H. Lawrence with his native Nottinghamshire, although Lawrence left his mark on a great number of places. Helen Corke, for instance, even wrote a book with
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