…  Beyond Eastrod: News Flash: Robin Hood is a Communist! The problem with Mrs. White was not her silly view, but her insistence that some...

Her hat, lying there On the bed, touches him so His heart nearly breaks.

…  New Statesman | Visions before midnight: the inimitable voice of Clive James . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) … James was – and remains – far mor...

…  Esposito and Lee in Fox Chase – November 30th | Fox Chase Review .

The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions. — Robert Louis Stevenson ,...

... Bible edges out Darwin as ‘most valuable to humanity’ in survey of influential books

... Ebola: Doctors Without Borders Shows How to Manage a Plague Despite MSF’s appeals all summer long to the WHO, the United Nations, Uni...

…  Every Poet .

Shakespeare's yellow leaves Spread out before me. Still-green Grasses promise spring.

…  On Dropping Babies and Mistaken Assumptions | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog .

…  Frieze Magazine | Seriously? — In defense of irony . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Maybe it's time to give irony a rest and just speak your...

…  Grimm brothers’ fairytales have blood and horror restored in new translation | Books | The Guardian . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) How the Chil...

…  James Booth’s biography of Philip Larkin, reviewed.  (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

…  The Song of Hiawatha (excerpt) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor . (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

…  Bob Dylan Was Almost The Star Of A ‘Slapstick’ HBO Comedy . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The rosary was said every evening. I always liked that sentence about the medieval Churches, that they were the Bibles of the poor. The Chu...

... Gay? Just don't say the G-word please

... Why read new books? In fact what becomes suspicious in a new novel is when it merely pastiches the effects of past novels, when it ta...

…  'Not That Kind of Girl' Review: Lena Dunham's Callow, Grating Memoir | New Republic . This is priceless: The author, crit...

…  My Very End of the Universe: Dark Humor and Family Dogs | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog .

…  Beyond Eastrod: What is the big deal about Veterans Day? Who cares?

…  You Can Ditch Your PC Now - WSJ . Not if you're having to put up with the iPad's shitful new operating system.

…  Detectives Beyond Borders: Northern Ireland comes to New York, and an alter kocker takes a header .

…  GR Sydney Lead — The Poetic Confidence of Robert Frost .  (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) I was … a young man in graduate school, far too concern...

…  Dave Eggers, Tobias Wolff on “privacy, and whether it’s possible to have it anymore” | The Book Haven . Maybe we should have a general ...

To love someone means to see him as God intended him. — Fyodor Dostoevsky , born on this date in 1821

If nothing else, God is a most intriguing hypothesis, very likely the most intriguing of all. The hypothesis asserts that the nature of b...

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

Consider what happened after Smith College held a panel for alumnae titled “Challenging the Ideological Echo Chamber: Free Speech, Civil ...

Examining a racial slur entrenched in American vernacular that is more prevalent than ever

…  First Known When Lost: "You Linger Your Little Hour And Are Gone, And Still The Woods Sweep Leafily On" .

…  Anecdotal Evidence: `Writing Like a Man on Trial for His Life' .

…  Beyond Eastrod: "Dear Samuel Beckett . . . " (A tragicomedy of sorts in the form of two acts and an epilogue) .

…  Can Concerts in Bars and Cafés Save Classical Music? | Mother Jones . (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.) If the only music you know is pop music, y...

…  Allison K Williams | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog .

…  Pico Iyer on What Leonard Cohen Teaches Us about the Art of Stillness | Brain Pickings . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  The American Scholar: The Art of the Sentence - Stanley Plumly . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

There is a certain phase in the life of the aged when the warmth of the heart seems to increase in direct proportion with the years. — J....

…  Two Important Publishing Facts Everyone Gets Wrong | Hugh Howey . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  iroon.com: Blogs: The Daughter of Isfahan . (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

…  Flannery O’Connor’s Manhattan Memorial - The New Yorker . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  The University Bookman: “The World’s Last Night” . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  The Neglected Books Page — Sweet Adversity, by Donald Newlove (1978) . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... How to Tell if You Are in a Gothic Horror Novel

...from The Guardian

…  William Gibson, back with a dystopian future …  Why a London banking scandal matters in Philly . …  View from 'The Hilltop' is...

... What Book Changed Your Mind?

...the cost of climate policies is already falling most heavily on today’s poor. Subsidies for renewable energy have raised costs of heatin...

…  Remembrance Sunday 2014 | Tate .

To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness. — Ivan Turgenev , born on this dat...

... Loneliness and Comedy in the Ebola Ward

On this date in 1883, the composer Arnold Bax was born, another of those symphonists whose music should be heard more often.

…  Punctuation is Important | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog .

…  The Future of Writing — Annoyed Librarian . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… Zealotry of Guerin: Le Salut (Delvaux), Sonnet #211 .

The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love. — Julian of Norwich , born on this da...

…  About OpenSciences.org — Campaign for Open Science . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Some materialistically inclined scientists and philosophers...

…  Milan K. Part One: The Teenage Years | The Dabbler .

…  A vegan goes stalking wild mushrooms in the Pine Barrens . I know Felix Giordano, and he does indeed know his mushrooms. He is also amo...

Winter's moving in Early. Just look at that sky, The empty playground.

…  Bryan Appleyard — Religion Rising, Atheism Sinking . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Explicitly religious artists are, therefore, the true disside...

…  The Art of Translation - Speakeasy - WSJ . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... Evelyn Waugh's sacred and profane prose

... No Argument Here

... Top 10 books 2014

…  Don Colacho’s Epitaphs | The American Conservative . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Shakespeare is too obscure for the stage, methinks — Telegraph . (Hat tip,  Dave Lull.)

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live as if there isn't and to die to find ou...

Breaking ranks with a wide array of other federal courts, and coming close to setting up almost certain review by the Supreme Court, a d...

…  A cause for celebration: it’s America’s name day! | The Book Haven .

…  Steven Pinker’s Bad Grammar — The New Yorker . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) It’s for grammatical consistency, not beauty or gentilesse, for exa...

Life is to blame for everything. — Robert Musil , born on this date in 1880

Only sunlight stays The same, though the mood change Time and time again.

As we note earlier here , Church royalty such as Philadelphia's own Cardinal Chaput, have taken to criticizing the Pope for attempting r...

…  Borges and God by Jorge Luis Borges and Osvaldo Ferrari | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books . (Hat tips to Vikram and Dave.) Borge...

…  When Falls the Coliseum � Lisa reads The Abduction by Jonathan Holt .

... Lionel Shriver: I was poor but I was happy Maybe she feels this way today, after getting the success she longed for. Had she never a...

…  Can I See Your Underwear? | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog .

…  Touchstone Archives: Post Mortem . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) … there is a good reason to take note of them. Postmodern cultural history is ...

... This year, I became the first scientist to judge the Man Booker This step was greeted with some anxiety. The chasm between science a...

... Whatever you say

... Steven Pinker's bad gramma r

…  Joseph Epstein: After the Midterms, Virtucrats Still Rule - WSJ - WSJ . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) Virtucrats sometimes seem to predominate o...

If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thi...

... Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction: Helen Macdonald wins with 'H is for Hawk'

... David Armstrong, photographer of subcultures, dies

... What if Leo Strauss was right?

The work of his I've read, I didn't love. From the NYT .

…  The Joy of the Memorized Poem - The Atlantic . (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.) Odd no mention is made of Thoreau's Walden , which was in par...

… Baddies in books: Sauron, literature’s ultimate source of evil | Books | The Guardian . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Silver Chips Online : Poetry deserves an A . (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

… My Very End of the Universe: The Fairy Tale Form | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog .

A great artist is always before his time or behind it. — G. E. Moore , born on this date in 1873

... Old masters

…  Tom Magliozzi, Popular Co-Host Of NPR's 'Car Talk,' Dies At 77 : NPR . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  Don’t Be Brave | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog .

…  November 2014: Shakespeare and Company Events .

…  Reading a Poem: 20 Strategies - The Atlantic . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) I am not in accord with all 20 — though I do see the point of t...

…  FULL BLEED: Exhibit Preview & Poetry Reading .

…  Wordsmith Bingo – Lingua Franca - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.) I don't have any. I think that ...