…  Kafka: The Decisive Years and Kafka: The Years of Insight, Reviewed | New Republic . (Hat tip,Dave Lull.)

…  These Are the 21 Female Authors You Should Be Reading | TIME.com . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) I don't think you should be reading any...

NEW DELHI: In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court on Tuesday created the "third gender" status for hijras...

From the NYT's column on usage and style: "The subjunctive can be tricky to get right."

Why Are Politicians’ Books So Terrible?

WHEN I WAS little, my dad used to tell me, as we ran around outside, on spring days just like the ones we had this weekend; “these are t...

…  First Known When Lost: Spring . Debbie and I once spent a very pleasant week in Kinsale.

…  The return of God: atheism's crisis of faith � The Spectator . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) The new atheism has reached the limits of what ...

If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. — Anatole France , born on this date in 1844

… Remembering Justin Vitiello 1941-2013 .

…  Celebrate National Library Week! - Oxford University Press . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Of course, I have been told that librarians on the l...

… Nein Quarterly: Twitter feed of Eric Jarosinski brings nihilism to the masses . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  25 Recent Jazz Albums You Really Ought to Hear | OUPblog . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Poetica Critique: Daniel Simko, "The Arrival" .

…  About Last Night: Split Decision . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)  All history, especially the history of the twentieth century, argues against p...

…  Podcast: They Call me MISTER Hyde! | Virtual Memories .

…  Patrick Madden visite la Tour de Montaigne! | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog .

…  How the actions of the Ted Hughes estate will change my biography | Culture | The Guardian . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) …  copyright only exi...

…   Inquirer's Saffron, critic of the built environment, wins Pulitzer . … see also:  Novelist Tartt, composer Adams lead Pulitzer art...

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind. — Henry James ...

... 2014 Pulitzer Prize goes to 'The Goldfinch' by Donna Tartt

... Seshadri, Lauterbach, O’Brien

…  A Conservative Defense of Brandeis University - Reason.com . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) While Hirsi Ali is claiming to be misrepresented by h...

…  beyond eastrod: Some thoughts about Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman . I had always feared that, when I retired, I would find my...

…  Bryan Appleyard — James Lovelock: The Epic of the Earth . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) "…    The problem with the climate is none of us ...

…  THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, Ten Years Later | Web Exclusives | Daily Writings From Our Top Writers | First Things . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... The Poetry of the Trading Floor, Going Beyond Bears and Bulls

… on what you mean by serious journalism:  Serious Newspaper Journalism Is Not Over | Vanity Fair . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) The problem with...

…  6 NYC Independent Bookstores That Are Thriving -- Daily Intelligencer .

…  Beyond AWP: The Benefits of Attending A Smaller Writing Conference | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog .

…  Dave Shiflett: Where Atheists Meet to Evangelize - WSJ.com . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Workshop topics will include starting your own atheis...

…  Matthew Arnold’s error: the state is bad for culture | Arts & Culture | Books & Essays | review of books, April 2014 | spiked . (...

The equation of religion with belief is rather recent. — Arnold j. Toynbee , born on this date in 1889

…  Anecdotal Evidence: `This Excess of Circumstance' .

…  On my radar: Marcel Theroux's cultural highlights | Culture | The Guardian . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Budd Schulberg is best known for ...

…  The Far Edges: Interview with Joe Wilkins | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog .

…  beyond eastrod: Curtain Call . . . back by popular demand (the grumpy old man said with his tongue in his cheek) . . . How to torture a m...

…  Neighborhood Book Burner Strikes The Little Free Library! | Perfect Duluth Day | Duluth News Events Music and More . (Hat tip, Dave Lull....

…  Bryan Appleyard — Graham Vick: God and Opera . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Vick seems to have the perfect personality for opera.

…  FCR Report on Philly Poetry Day | Fox Chase Review . … more here:  Poets Read in Rustic Philadelphia- Poets @ Pennypack .

…  All the education in the world will not compensate for a logical fallacy… | The Black Swan Repor t . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill, and the Battlefield of AIDS . Time has not softened Duberman’s scalding assessment of...

… Yours truly opines, sort of:  New tomes shed light on our relationship to religion .

… Vikram reviews Gandhi Before India :  The early Gandhi as a work in progress . …  Wall St. wins again, in blink of an eye . …  'Co...

Being a writer in a library is rather like being a eunuch in a harem. — John Braine , born on this date in 1922

... Simples-tic!

…  PJ Media � We Are All Scientists . Science is not a degree, or a paying job, or even (as many mistakenly believe, and sadly how it’s too...

... The Unpredictability of Academic Writing

... Idea of New Attention Disorder Spurs Research, and Debate

…  Book Review: 'Poems That Make Grown Men Cry,' edited by Anthony and Ben Holden - WSJ.com . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Yesterday, I p...

…  Zealotry of Guerin: Yei Be Chei Dancers (Julia Guerin), Sonnet #172 . Make sure to click on the picture to see the painting better.

…  New Statesman | Why futurologists are always wrong – and why we should be sceptical of techno-utopians . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)   Neurosci...

God forgives us... who am I not to forgive? — Alan Paton , who died on this date in 1988

…   The winners of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) More here .

... The home-school conundrum

... Exploring the chasm

…  Manhattan’s iconic bookstore Rizzoli closes its doors today amid protests. | The Book Haven .

... The upside of failure: Success

…  Philip Roth, Still Writing (Letters, at Least) - NYTimes.com . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Here's What I Would Have Said at Brandeis - WSJ.com . (Hat tip, dave Lull.) We need to make our universities temple...

…  Book review: ‘Why Science Does Not Disprove God’ by Amir D. Aczel — The Washington Post . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) It is not the inabilit...

…  The Millions : You’ve Got Mail: On the New Age of Biography . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) In his end notes to his biography of David Fost...

The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him dif...

... Sue Townsend, creator of hapless and much-loved Adrian Mole, dies aged 68 The toughness of that time is something she never underplaye...

…  Rank Appeasement by Bruce Bawer, City Journal 10 April 2014 . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…   Alive to the World of Literature: Biographer Adam Begley on John Updike | Biography | Biographile . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) He would get ...

Jesus Lives, but Should He Live in My Front Yard?

Study Casts Doubt on Superiority of Stradivarius Violins

… so blogging will have to wait until later.

Rules and models destroy genius and art. — William Hazlitt , born on this date in 1778

... What Muriel Spark saw

…  PHILADELPHIA POETRY — Katie Ford: BY LEONARD GONTAREK .

…  American Library — The Morning News . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) I heard some politician say recently that closing libraries is no big deal, ...

... Mind the gaps This talent for finding light in life’s shadows first earned Mr Eno serious attention in 2005, with the New York debut of...

... Do we really need Hemingway App?

…  A Commonplace Blog: Dying is a 12-step program . (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

And so, dying here and now nevermore to see your face against love raging

…  When the Professor Got Stuck in the Snow by Dan Rhodes – review | Culture | The Guardian . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) …  the star of his nint...

I place no hope in my strength, nor in my works: but all my confidence is in God my protector, who never abandons those who have put all t...

…  Brandeis University withdraws planned honorary degree for Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali | Fox News . I'm sure there would have been ...

…  The Far Edges: A Story About a Girl | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog .

…  Review-a-Day - Edgar Allan Poe and the Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments by Elizabeth Bishop, reviewed by The New Republ...

In the Bible, from the start, God is a given. He precedes everything, but also coincides with everything. What he creates first is a begin...

…  ‘Updike,’ Adam Begley’s Look at a Novelist’s Career - NYTimes.com . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) It’s one of the achievements of Mr. Begley’s b...

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, is also a blogger of some renown at his site www.Instapundit.com .  G...

... A Day in the Life of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop

…  Walton Goggins of "Justified": The best kept secret in American acting? | Balder and Dash | Roger Ebert . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)...

…  Living on the Edge of Life: A Final Interview with Peter Matthiessen | . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Fiction allows you to go deeper. You use ...

…  Classicist says quote of Virgil's inscribed on 9/11 Memorial is "shockingly inappropriate" � MobyLives . (Hat tip, Dave Lul...

…  The Culture of Shut Up — Jon Lovett — The Atlantic . …what happens next—how we face the downside of so much connectedness—will determine...

…  The Far Edges: Interview with Sean Prentiss | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog .

…  Elite Violinists Fail to Distinguish Legendary Violins From Modern Fiddles | Science/AAAS | News .  (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) The consistenc...

…  The Book of Common Prayer Is Still a Big Deal | Christianity Today . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Paranormalia: An Incomplete Mystical Experience . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Why does [Ehrereich]  think that the meaning she derives from h...

We would be in a nasty position indeed if empirical science were the only kind of science possible. — Edmund Husserl , born on this date...

I've just finished Bess Lovejoy's book about death and dying. But don't worry, it wasn't too bleak. Lovejoy entertains ...

…  News that’s not news: CIA funded Dr. Zhivago | The Book Haven . “Thanks to the fact that Pasternak won the Nobel Prize, Pasternak wasn’t...

…  Podcast: Reading Maketh a Full Man — A Chat with D. G. Myers | Virtual Memories .

…  The Trick of Life — NYTimes.com . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) …  I got up from the sofa and walked down to the Hudson River, which I live not ...

…  Twelve Poets Recommend New and Recent Titles | On the Seawall: A Literary Website by Ron Slate (GD) .