Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

August 24, 2012

Better Late Than Never

An F. Scott Fitzgerald story rejected 75 years ago is finally published in The New Yorker.  Recently discovered by Fitzgerald’s grandchildren, “Thank You for the Light” is a short, fable-like vignette turned down in 1936 for being too unlike his other work.  See what you think.

Reports of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated

The predicted demise of the book is tracked through the ages by the NY Times.  Beginning with Theophile Gautier’s 1835 declaration that “the newspaper is killing the book,”  the essay traces how every generation has rewritten the book’s epitaph for nearly 200 years.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Scientologist

A 7-year-old Neil Gaiman talks to BBC Radio about Scientology in this transcript published by the Village Voice.  Discovered in a 1969 church pamphlet, the future sci-fi writer – whose dad was Scientology’s PR chief in the UK – is interviewed to refute Parliament’s objections to the church.

Cross-Pollinating the Arts

Lovers of books and music shouldn’t miss the Literary Jukebox.  Matching a daily book quote with a thematically-related song, this new website shares such unique pairings as Ernest Hemmingway with Mazzy Star, Susan Sontag with Andrew Bird, and many others.


A Few Writers on Poetry

April 6, 2011


Emily Dickinson


While searching for the perfect poem, I encountered this website (Poets’ Graves) with interesting quotes from well-known writers. Here are several I especially liked-

‘The poet is the priest of the invisible.’      Wallace Stevens

‘If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.’
Emily Dickinson

‘I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.’    Bob Dylan

‘Poets aren’t very useful. / Because they aren’t consumeful or very produceful.’                Ogden Nash

Shira S.


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