When you wish upon a university library…
Librarians at the University of Missouri are hoping Christmas comes early this year. They wrote a wish list of books they want for their library and sent it to the… Read more »
Yes, we’re in deep d’oh now: The Simpsons’ thirty years of literary joshing
¡Ay, caramba! Hard to believe it, but today’s the thirtieth anniversary of the first-ever broadcast of The Simpsons! And you, since you’re reading this and are thus a person of great taste… Read more »
Why there’s a “first edition of the Iliad” in The Boy Next Door
When we last reported the motive behind a laughable movie prop choice, it was a welcome glimpse into the filmmaking process, and how an elder statesman of film handles last-second… Read more »
To be and not to have been: kill lists and poetry
When a writer or a translator strips a well-known work down to its essence, as Alice Oswald had done with The Iliad in Memorial, the narrative takes on almost new meaning. In… Read more »
Iliad date is confirmed, thanks to science
How do you date a text from roughly 8 B.C.E.? You track it like a geneticist. “Languages behave just extraordinarily like genes,” says Mark Pagel, an evolutionary theorist at the… Read more »
FRIDAY SOMETHING-OR-OTHER-TO-DO-WITH-BOOKS MUSIC VIDEO: Cream
Break out your mink hats, Cream fans, here’s Jack Bruce and his mates (Eric Clapton, guitar; Ginger Baker, drums) performing “Tales of Brave Ulysses” live on the Smothers Brothers Comedy… 1 / Read more »
SLIDESHOW: The battle of the beards continues
The Battle of the Beards continues as the Star Tribune picks up yesterday’s glove and points out yet more overlooked beards. Add in a few reader suggestions and we were… 1 / Read more »