ninme

Long read: Commentary – Why College Kids Are Avoiding the Study of Literature Students wisely reject the humanities when they’re taught badly. There’s a better way. By Gary Saul Morson Now. Do we think that the (proper) study of literature teaches empathy? Or that the naturally empathetic appreciate literature.

Categories: Art and Literature

(2012 is getting included as I skipped out on doing this last year) Unlike virtuous, self-improving people with social lives like RC2, I tend to stick to novels, and I tend to be a pretty easy mark on books so if I read something about one or read an interview with an author suddenly I […]

Categories: Art and Literature

Back in In Our Time did a show/podcast on Christina Rossetti, and since then I feel like I’ve noticed her everywhere. This is lovely: American Digest – Pause…. and Begin Again Gloucester Cathedral Choir – In the Bleak Midwinter

Categories: Art and Literature

Amazing Bible Stories! I’m going on a small car trip tomorrow with The Child and was looking up books on tape on iTunes (remember those cassettes that came with Disney storybooks? yeah they don’t exist anymore) and! And! “King Saul could give no answer /Yorkshire accent Update: There’s also Judi Dench doing the alphabet, and […]

Categories: Art and Literature

I’ve been reading this, via Janice Turner’s Twitter feed, on my phone, and I’ve gotten up to “there are criticisms flying about” and I had to get up and link to it on here because I just keep laughing out loud and doing subtle air punches (we’ve just had dinner, the child is in bed, […]

Categories: Art and Literature

Via Brett McS, who knows me, what can I say: Ali Mills – Waltjim Bat Matilda In the first minute or so, I was confused, and had to look her up in Wiki, at which point all was made clear: Her Kriol version of “Waltzing Matilda” sung in her Gurindji-Kungarakan language (written by her great […]

Categories: Art and Literature

(Unrelated, but: Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!) On Friday I went to the de Young Museum in San Francisco to see the Girl with a Pear Earring (Dutch Paintings From the Mauritshuis). It really is a lovely painting. Nobody seems to point out how Vermeer seems to have put the whole thing out of focus (especially […]

Categories: Art and Literature

Daily Mail – For sale – a Jane Austen fantasy: Entire £50m Georgian Bath crescent goes on the market for the first time in 200 years How bout it?

Categories: Art and Literature

But Windsor is a damned fine looking castle.

Categories: Art and Literature

I agree with this: Wheat & Weeds – Maurice Sendak

Categories: Art and Literature

I read more than just The Hunger Games, people. Honest I do. Please don’t judge me. I’ve also read these worthwhile and erudite works: Pigeon English: This was very good. About a young boy from Ghana who moves into a council flat in London with his family, leaving his father behind to finish some things […]

Categories: Art and Literature

So, where was I all last week? Reading The Hunger Games. I’m sorry! A coworker lent it to me! And it’s one of those stupid books (then series of three books) where if you don’t just finish the damned thing you’ll be up all night every time you pick it up so you might as […]

Categories: Art and Literature

Lists of Note – The Fake Books of Charles Dickens When Charles Dickens moved into Tavistock House in 1851, he decided to fill two spaces in his new study with bookcases containing fake books, the witty titles of which he had invented. And so, on October 22nd, he wrote to a bookbinder named Thomas Robert […]

Categories: Art and Literature

You’ll never guess what I found: My book notebook! Yea, verily, the little black notebook that I write down everything I read in. Once upon a time I planned on doing a Sunday Books of the Year list at the last day of every year, but after 2005, every time New Years rolled around, I […]

Categories: Art and Literature

Peter and I went up to the city today to see the Maharaja exhibit at the Asian Art Museum. I had never been to the Asian Art Museum and had no idea it was right across the street from City Hall. It’s really lovely. Totally by accident we ended up doing the whole thing backwards […]

Categories: Art and Literature