Please note: I was trying out different themes for the site and a few recent comments got deleted. My apologies for this mistake.
Last night my wife and I went to see the 2015 movie Bill, which has the tagline of “How Bill became Shakespeare.” As far as I know, this was the only U.S. screening before its DVD release in the states next month. Thanks to Fathom Events for another wonderful media experience. If you’re familiar with […]
Killing Eratosthenes: A True Crime Story from Ancient Athens by Debra Hamel CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform: 2016 (978-1523995691) My first introduction to Debra Hamel was with Reading Herodotus: A Guided Tour through the Wild Boars, Dancing Suitors, and Crazy Tyrants of The History, a great introduction to one of my favorite books, The Histories (and […]
I stumbled across a copy of The Realists: Eight Portraits by C. P. Snow (Scribners, 1978) in our library and promptly checked it out when I saw Benito Pérez Galdós listed. I had no idea this existed, so I wanted to pass this on. I thoroughly enjoyed Snow’s essay and highly recommend it for readers […]
I found an interesting article on an upcoming paper about Alexander the Great and the possible cause for his erratic behavior: CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), the same problem many American football players experience after multiple concussions. [Note: link has been updated to go to the published Athens Journal of History article.] A quote from the […]
The third live session hosted by Universidad Francisco Marroquín’s MOOC on Don Quijote. It felt like this was going over previous territory, but that was fine by me. One of my questions had to do with film versions of the novel, especially since I had recently read something that Terry Gilliam might be attempting to […]
When I posted about Win Riley’s documentary on Walker Percy, my brief comments in this post noted my disappointment there wasn’t more from the episode on Firing Line that had Eudora Welty and Walker Percy (although I understood the legal issues). At the time, though, you could find the transcript of the episode online and […]
I’m really enjoying the Universidad Francisco Marroquín’s MOOC on Don Quijote and wanted to share the second live session that was held this past Thursday (18 Feb 2016). The session covered questions from Chapters 15 through 28 in Part I. I was fortunate to get a few questions in on the call…enjoy! Live Session 2 […]
Since I love seeing books used in shows and movies, I thought I’d share a few screenshots from 1957’s movie The Enemy Below. The story follows a cat-and-mouse game between an American destroyer and a German U-Boat during World War II (and is currently available on Netflix). The following screenshots take place about an hour […]
Don Quixote has long been one of my favorite novels. While I have seen several online open courses covering the novel, I’ve never participated in one until now. I **highly** recommend exploring (or re-reading) the novel along with the course from instructor Eric C. Graf and through the Universidad Francisco Marroquín. I’ve just finished the […]
…and bid them that they shall make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue: and it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, […]
I know this is last minute, but I wanted to mention The Reading Odyssey’s Livy Discussion Group. The first meeting is Tuesday evening at 8pm EDT. More information can be found on this page. The focus of the group will be Books 21 – 30, Livy’s coverage of the Second Punic War and Hannibal’s invasion […]
Loch, J. N. K. (1968). A fringe of blue: An autobiography. New York: Morrow. Related posts A Fringe of Blue: A Fringe of Blue 1918 – 23 I’m hoping this marks the end of the blog’s hiatus. Things have been… challenging. But I’ve really missed posting here and being part of the online book community. […]
Four years ago, Amateur Reader hosted an Anything Ubu readalong, focusing on Alfred Jarry’s plays. I just discovered that the UK theatre company Cheek by Jowl will be livestreaming a performance of Ubu Roi Sunday, 11am PDT. Click here to watch the performance. There’s a handy countdown clock so you know exactly when it will […]
Starting Monday on BBC 4 Radio’s “Book at Bedtime” series, the book will be Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, read by David Horovitch and abridged by Tom Holland. And what an abridgment, since the total air time will be an hour and fifteen minutes. I have no idea what it will be like, but […]
Asymptote Journal had passed along an article about The Library of Congress Is Uploading 75 Years of Poetry and Literature Recordings. I’ve had fun listening to a few of the recordings, especially the ones with Joseph Brodsky, Czesław Miłosz, and James Merrill, and plan on listening to many more. Since I’m more of a “scroll” […]
Details on the screening Written up at midnight after seeing the Stratford Festival’s screening of King John, while a few thoughts I actually had during the viewing are with me. Forgive the hasty nature of this post. Philip Faulconbridge, the Bastard, is a marvelous character, and not just in the sense he’s a “type” that […]
I have been looking forward to the upcoming Stratford Festival screening of King John for several reasons, but especially since I’ve only seen it once. The play can be described as erratic, but there are some wonderful moments in it. The selection of incidents Shakespeare includes in the play brings home the parallels between the […]
The Death of Caesar by Barry Strauss Simon & Schuster, 323 pages, $27I’m rushing through this post since I want to post it on the Ides of March (and I just finished the book)… Barry Strauss, professor of history and classics at Cornell University, has provided an insightful study of the actions, motivations, and fallout […]
I wish I could say I’ve read Hilary Mantel’s books Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. I want to say that…I really do. But I’ve been knee-deep in readings about the Plantagenets lately. I’ll get to Mantel’s books soon, I know I will. In the meantime I just found out about PBS’ upcoming series […]
Adding to the continuing series of books in movies… In Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Steve Rogers’ climbs in through the window of his apartment after realizing someone has broken in. There are two shelves you see him pass by on his way to see who’s in his apartment. He passes by the second […]