The other day I wanted to look up something in Shakespeare in Swahililand by Edward Wilson-Lee but couldn’t find my copy of the book. Searching online, I stumbled across the podcast of Shakespeare Unlimited’s Episode 83: Shakespeare in Swahililand from October 2017, with Edward Wilson-Lee and Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o as guests. From the episode: Edward […]
Tag: Nonfiction
The War on the Poor by Éric VuillardTranslation by Mark PolizzottiOther Press, 2020 I have been reading a few books about the Peasants’ War of 1524-25, a somewhat timely endeavor since we’re at the 500 year mark of the war’s culmination. I was going to post on one book I thought extremely well done and […]
This book tells the story of Cicero and his rise to prominence as a trial lawyer, from his debut in the courts in the late 80s BC to his death nearly four decades later. Cicero’s successful defense of many influential men accused of murder, extortion, and other crimes earned him wealth, favors to call in, […]
Phocion (402–318 BCE) won Athens’s highest public office by direct democratic election an unmatched forty-five times and was officially honored as a “Useful Citizen.” A student at Plato’s Academy, Phocion gained influence and power during a time when Athens faced multiple crises stemming from Macedonia’s emergence as an international power under Philip II and his […]
The sky is our songand we begin with Zeus, for men cannot speakwithout giving Him names. The streets are filled,the sea and its harbors are flooded with Zeus,and in Him we move and have all our being.For we are His children, and He blesses our racewith beneficent signs, and wakes man to his work,directing his […]
This is a study of the study, the personal workspace where we think, read, and write. I argue for the following: Transhistorically, our inner lives are shaped by our interior spaces. Historically, the studiolo was created in the Renaissance. Conceptually, the studiolo is a pharmakon, a cure or poison for the soul. In its highest aspirations, the studiolo, as […]
The posthumous image of him has been entangled with the real individual, and no one has really fully tried to disentangle them. But achieving that would provide us with a unique window into both the life of the court and fundamental conceptions of humour, humanity, and deviance in the Reneissance. … Fool: In Search of Henry […]
Francisco Goya, El sueño de la razon produce monstruos, 1797–1798, Etching and Aquatint.From Wikipedia CommonsAt the risk of overwhelming you with Dostoyevsky Reads Hegel in Siberia and Bursts into Tears, I wanted to relay this complete essay by László F. Földényi at The Paris Review posted last week. I’m only about a third of the […]
It seems like a good time for long articles to read while at home. One article I highly recommend is Mike Shropshire’s article in the October 1987 D Magazine titled “The Silent Spring of Walker Railey” regarding the attack on Peggy Railey, wife of high-profile Methodist minister Walker Railey. I lived in Dallas at the […]
(Pictures from hlo.hu) László F. Földényi was author of the month for February at Hungarian Literature Online, and they have closed out the month with a bang. Today they provided one of Földényi’s essays, “Goya’s Dog,” at their site. The translation is by Ottilie Mulzet, the same translator for the collection of essays Dostoyevsky Reads […]
Last night I attended a lecture by Maria Pia Paganelli, president of the International Adam Smith Society. The talk was part of the Adam Smith Lecture Series at Boise State University. Some of the previous years’ lectures are described at their site as well as links to recordings of them. It looks like quite the […]
God Struck Me Dead: Voices of Ex-Slaves Edited by Clifton H. Johnson, with a new introduction by Albert J. Rabateau The William Bradford Collection from The Pilgrim Press, 1993 (2nd edition) Paperback, 204 pages The reissue of a rare volume of ex-slave narratives is as timely now as it was when it first appeared in […]
Vladimir Bukovsky passed away this past weekend at the age of 76. Before he was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1976, Bukovsky spent 12 years in prisons, psychiatric hospitals, and labor camps. Vladimir Nabokov said of Bukovsky, “Bukovsky’s heroic speech to the court in defense of freedom, and his five years of martyrdom in […]
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 […]
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 […]
Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century by Alexandra Popoff Yale University Press, 2019 Hardcover, 424 pagesStalingrad by Vasily Grossman is officially released today. While I’m waiting for my copy to arrive by mail, I wanted to share a little about this outstanding biography. Alexandra Popoff has written several literary biographies and is a former Moscow […]
Picture from Old Maps, Expeditions, and Explorations blog The Voynich manuscript has been in the news off and on over the past few years. From Wikipedia: The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex hand-written in an unknown writing system. The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438), […]