Posts by author
Dinah Fay
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NYPL as Budget Hostage
A scathing indictment from Jim Dwyer at the New York Times this week accuses city leaders of depriving funding from the library system, and its mayors of holding the NYPL hostage for leverage in budget negotiations. As Dwyer points out,…
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Lear’s Metrical Madness
As part as the Shakespeare on Tor series, Brian Stavely brings us on a quick tour of King Lear’s descent into madness, as evidenced by a careful metrical reading of five speeches. Following the aging monarch through his perfectly-pentametered Latinate…
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Noodling about with Narratives
The introduction to Martin Solares’s How to Draw a Novel, currently in the process of English translation, takes on a cheerfully animated life of its own at LitHub. Solares discusses ways to visualize various novels, charting plots and digressions to…
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Impending Death of a Dictionary
Much like the parochial vocabulary it strives to catalogue, the Dictionary of American Regional English is in danger of extinction. A stopgap crowdfunding campaign is currently open to support the project in the short term, but the long-term forecast for…
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Buddies, Bishop and Gunn
Colm Toíbín, author of On Elizabeth Bishop, has a lovely long reflection at the Guardian about Bishop’s friendship with Thom Gunn, and the parallels in the artists’ life and work. Bishop and Gunn both shied away from writing about mentally ill mothers…
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Nightwalking with Dickens
Long walks are among the most common creative practices, we’re told, for writers from a certain era: Wordsworth, Thoreau, and Blake come quickly to mind. Matthew Beaumont’s new Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London from Verso is a treasure trove…
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Hip Hip for Howl
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, a veritable smorgasbord of celebrities came together at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles to put on a variety show for the ages. Hal Willner, a longtime musical producer for SNL,…
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Shelters for Families, and Books
Twenty homeless shelters serving NYC families will be getting their own libraries as part of a new initiative from the Departments of Education and Homeless Services. The project, supported by Scholastic and a number of literacy organizations, aims to address…
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Bedtime Reading with Charles Simic
Poet Charles Simic, in a piece on the NYRB blog, shares his quest for the perfect bedtime reading strategy. Simic turns to books to settle his mind for the night, but must be careful with his choices: I read only…
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Derrida Goes to Princeton
New Jersey is about to get Poststructural, thanks to Princeton’s recent acquisition of Jacques Derrida’s library. The collection contains nearly 14,000 books, many of which bear marginalia from the celebrated critic and philosopher. The collection will be available to scholars…
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In the Batcave with Robert Moses
If you’ve been curious about Robert Moses but put off by the sheer heft of volumes like The Power Broker, a forthcoming comic book rendering of the master builder’s reign is a fun new option. The book, titled Robert Moses,…
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Taylor Swift: Grammar Crusader?
Proving that the quest for high scores on the SAT is as tragically unhip as ever, The Princeton Review is making headlines for setting off a grammar grudge match with pop sensation Taylor Swift. Swift’s lyrics are not only included…