The Times Literary Supplement hosts a selection from the print edition’s Books of the Year list.
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Monthly Archives: November 2008
Easy to Forget
National Public Radio’s All Things Considered has a segment by Rick Kleffel on the art of translation.
Posted in Writing
Tagged literature, npr, poetry, rick kleffel, translation, usa
Unpacking the Boxes by Donald Hall
Recommended with reservations.
Posted in Read in 2008
Tagged donald hall, houghton mifflin, memoir, poet laureate, poetry, recommended with reservations, usa
Narrowing Effect
Millions of journal articles are available online, enabling scholars to find material they never would have encountered at their university libraries. From classic psychology studies to the most esoteric literary theory, it’s all just a few clicks away.
A recent study, however, suggests that despite this cornucopia, the boom in online research may actually have a “narrowing” effect on scholarship. James Evans, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, analyzed a database of 34 million articles in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, and determined that as more journal issues came online, new papers referenced a relatively smaller pool of articles, which tended to be more recent, at the expense of older and more obscure work.
In the Boston Globe, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow examines the findings.
Posted in Education
Tagged boston globe, internet, james evans, narrowing effect, rebecca tuhus dubrow, research
The Funeral Party by Ludmila Ulitskaya
Recommended.
Posted in Read in 2008
Tagged arch tait, cathy porter, ludmila ulitskaya, recommended, russia, schocken, translation
Four Historic Epochs
The New York Times has Liesl Schillinger’s review of Stalin’s Children by Owen Matthews.
When Matthews’s maternal grand mother was released from the gulag in 1948, her reaction to the sight of 14-year-old Lyudmila, whom she’d last seen as a healthy toddler, was less heartwarming: “The first glimpse Martha had of her younger daughter was a crippled silhouette at the end of the hall. Martha called out Lyudmila’s name, and howled as the little girl ran lopsidedly towards her. Lyudmila remembered that awful wail all her life.”
Posted in Reading
Tagged book review, liesl schillinger, memoir, new york times, owen matthews, russia
Of Consumerism and Control
Still a Communist party member, Saramago describes himself as a “hormonal communist – just as there’s a hormone that makes my beard grow every day. I don’t make excuses for what communist regimes have done – the church has done a lot of wrong things, burning people at the stake. But I have the right to keep my ideas. I’ve found nothing better.”
At the Guardian, Maya Jaggi interviews José Saramago.
Posted in Writing
Tagged guardian, interview, jose saramago, maya jaggi, portugal
Strange Bedfellows
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designates Iowa City, Iowa, the world’s third City of Literature.
More than 1,200 emerging and established writers from more than 120 countries have been in residence at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, which has enjoyed long-standing support from the U.S. Department of State. Writers have included such luminaries as Bessie Head, Bei Dao, Luisa Valenzuela, John Banville and Nobel Prize-winner Orhan Pamuk. Each fall these writers participate in dozens of public events, including readings and panel discussions.