Hail & Farewell, Alexander Pushkin
Among the many abstractions abandoned by modernity and rarely confronted in cosmopolitan, “First World” settings like the one I’m self-congratulatingly writing from, if you will allow that unfashionable designation (especially… Read more »
Happy Birthday, Charles Dodgson
On this date, January 27, the eminent mathematician and Fellow of Christ Church college, Oxford, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born in 1832. He is the distinguished author of An Elementary… 1 / Read more »
Not Beloved in the Heartland
In December, Plymouth-Canton Community Schools (Plymouth, Michigan) Superintendent Jeremy M. Hughes removed Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, Beloved and Graham Swift’s Booker-shortlisted Waterland from the high-school curriculum after a complaint from… 1 / Read more »
Other things to do with books
The veneration of books has always laid traps for the reckless and unwary, and it has frequently mutated into perversity. Many young lovers of books, for instance, have awakened to… Read more »
Are writers leading an independent bookstore renaissance?
Ann Patchett, the bestselling author of Bel Canto and State of Wonder, has opened a new independent bookstore, Parnassus Books, in her hometown of Nashville. In this quixotic undertaking she joins… Read more »
Please form an orderly, single-file line
In a fundraising email sent to supporters yesterday, presidential candidate Michele Bachmann offered signed copies of her forthcoming memoir, Core of Conviction, My Story. A stampede ensued as bibliophiles, collectors,… 1 / Read more »
What Is Scientology? and other works by Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard have been condemned by a Russian court and may again be added to the country’s Federal… 1 / Read more »
One of the “most viewed” stories still on today’s Los Angeles Times Opinion webpage was published last Friday, June 17th. “Kindle vs. books: The dead trees society” is its title,… 12 / Read more »
Jennifer Frances began distributing free books to school-age children in her native Tampa almost a decade ago. In 2010, sponsored by Florida-based Transitions Optical, and a host of other donors… Read more »
Have you been asking yourself, “Is it better to celebrate Alexander Pushkin’s birthday today, May 26th — or to wait until the Monday after next, June 6th ?” We’ve encountered… Read more »