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Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” Born in a Shack on Princeton Ridge
Not since Byron awoke one morning to find himself famous has there been such an example of worldwide celebrity won in a day by a book. —New York Evening World…
Outside Over Here and There With Maurice Sendak (1928-2012)
In May 1981, Maurice Sendak, who died at the age of 83 on May 8, confided to his journal: “I hate May, everything seems to begin and end in May.…
Bicentenary Update: Dickens Bows Out With a Masterful Chapter
When the eldest of Charles Dickens’s ten children, 33-year-old Charley, looked in on him less than a week before the author’s death on June 9, 1870, Dickens was “writing very…
Growing Old With Robert Browning: A Bicentenary Broadcast
He offered the cosmos as an adventure rather than a scheme. He did not explain evil, far less explain it away: he enjoyed defying it …. He may be said…
You Can Always Get What You Didn’t Know You Wanted at the Bryn Mawr-Wellesley Sale
Based on my experience last week, the best things to be found at used book sales like Bryn Mawr-Wellesley are the ones that you didn’t know you wanted and, in…
“There Was Light Coming Out of His Face”: Looking for Einstein in Unexpected Places
The cult of individual personalities is always, in my view, unjustified. —Albert Einstein (3-14-79 — 4-18-55) A major component of Albert Einstein’s enduring appeal is his self-deprecating sense of humor, of…
The Time of His Life: Reading Between Clark Terry’s Lines
Clark: The Autobiography of Clark Terry (University of California Press $34.95) has an abundance of memorable moments, some shocking, some joyful, some sad, some funny. The ninety-one-year-old jazz legend had…
On the Bicentenary: A Dickensian Hero Explores Dickens’s Dream
His genius plays like a warm light on the characteristic aspects of homely England. No man ever loved England more; and the proof of it remains in picture after picture…
Virginia Woolf, Reading Over Dorothy Wordsworth’s Shoulder: A Birthday Tribute
Wordsworth & his exquisite Sister are with me …. Her manners are simple, ardent, impressive …. Her information various — her eyes watchful in minutest observations of nature — and…
Henriques, Author of Book About Madoff, Details His Methods of Deceiving People
The crimes of Bernard Madoff have occupied journalist Diana Henriques since the details of his stunning, $65 billion Ponzi scheme began to unfold in December 2008. Ms. Henriques, a senior…
