Category: words

“People might not have wanted to buy Mein Kampf at Borders or have it delivered to their home or displayed on their living room bookshelf, let alone get spotted reading it on a subway. But judging by hundreds of customer comments online, readers like that digital copies can be quietly perused then dropped into a folder or deleted.”

The space at Fifth Avenue and 18th Street was the only remaining retail location when Leonard Riggio bought and relaunched the chain in the 1970s.

“A modest white schoolhouse near Brussels is in the vanguard of a long-struggling movement of Latin enthusiasts who refuse to say requiescat in pace to the ancient language.”

“The Swedish Academy keeps all information about nominations and selections for the literature Nobel secret until 50 years have passed. Newly opened archives in Sweden show De Gaulle was one of 80 individuals suggested for the 1963 honour, alongside more obvious candidates including Pablo Neruda, Samuel Beckett and WH Auden.”

“Even after 50 years it is difficult to name a coterie—even a couple of writers—that the NYRB nurtured or found. From Gore Vidal and Christopher Lasch in the early years to Amartya Sen and Paul Krugman today, the NYRB gave space to important figures—but only once they were already important.”

Conservative pundit Heather Mac Donald: “Until 2011, students majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton – the cornerstones of English literature.” But no more. “What happened at UCLA is part of a momentous shift that bears on our relationship to the past – and to civilization itself.”

“Literature students have a brand new ‘classic’ to study: the Political Correctness Killed Shakespeare article.” Rebecca Schuman offers a take-down of Heather Mac Donald’s jeremiad.

“The story of contemporary publishing is largely that of what Amazon has done to it and of what it threatens – in publishers’ and booksellers’ nightmares – to do. It is the story of a huge contrast between the perceptions of readers, authors and Wall Street, and those of publishers and booksellers.”

“The important result, according to the study authors – Gregory Berns and his colleagues – is that the participants’ averaged brain connectivity patterns at rest were altered by the experience of reading Pompeii.”

“Lebanese officials and religious figures mobilized Saturday to prevent a renewal of tensions in the northern city of Tripoli after unknown assailants torched a historic library owned by a Greek Orthodox priest” – allegedly because there was one pamphlet deemed insulting to the Prophet Muhammad hidden in one of the books.