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As I’ve noted in several posts, I love seeing books used as props in movies or shows, especially when it’s clear some thought went into what book was going to be in the frame. Here’s an interesting story on how an unpublished book was used as a prop in Avengers: Endgame. When the man who […]
Another semi-recent article I should mention is Address Unknown: the great, forgotten anti-Nazi book everyone must read at The Guardian. There has been numerous blog reviews on the book over the years, and despite positive notes on the book I had never read it. The article title may be a bit overblown, but it did […]
A grab bag of articles I’ve recently enjoyed: “The Puzzles of Thermopylae” by Chris Carey The story is well known and easily told. But the battle throws up a number of lasting puzzles. We have no contemporary account. Our earliest source, Herodotus, began his research perhaps 30 years or more after the event. He had […]
Thanks to Arts & Letters Daily for linking to a review of Ernst Jünger’s recently translated World War II diary A German Officer in Occupied Paris. The article is titled “A Dandy Goes to War”, authored by Michael Lewis. I’ve been interested in Jünger since reading On the Marble Cliffs, probably the strangest book I’ve […]
Since I missed this when it happened three years ago… From MyModernMet.com back in 2016: Salvador Dalí’s Eccentric Cookbook Is Being Reissued for the First Time in Over 40 Years. First published in 1973, Les Diners de Gala was a bizarre dream come true—a cookbook filled with surreal illustrations and recipes inspired by the lavish […]
How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy by Thucydides Speeches from The History of the Peloponnesian War Selected, translated, and introduced by Johanna Hanink Princeton University Press, 2019 Hardcover, 336 pages Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers SeriesI had not read any of the releases in Princeton University Press’ Ancient Wisdom “How […]
Elemental: How the Periodic Table Can Now Explain (Nearly) Everything by Tim James Abrams Press, 2019 Hardcover, 224 pages Chemistry is not an abstract subject happening in dingy laboratories: it’s happening everywhere around us and everywhere within us. In order to understand chemistry, therefore, we have to understand the periodic table, that hideous thing you […]
If you have wanted to see the National Theatre Live’s 2015 version of Hamlet and haven’t had a chance yet, check the Fathom Events site [note: link has been removed] to see if there will be a screening near you on July 8th. The time I saw it, the audience had a nice mix of ages […]
Several years ago I posted on Women of the Gulag: Portraits of Five Remarkable Lives by Paul R. Gregory. A moving and powerful book, Gregory detailed some of the problems that five Soviet women faced when victimized by the gulag system. I believe I first found out about the book from Cynthia Haven at The […]
Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk by John Doe, with Tome DeSavia and Friends Da Capo Press, 2016 Hardcover, 336 pages Under the Big Black Sun explores the nascent Los Angeles punk rock movement and its evolution to hardcore punk as it’s never been told before. Authors John Doe and […]