In many respects it is the document that laid the seeds for the western world as we know it. It is where the pursuit of liberty and the rule of law make their first appearance in print. Some highlights of the Charter: - It was the first document forced onto a King of England by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. - The charter required King John of England to proclaim certain liberties and accept that his will was not arbitrary. - It was an...
The Reader Redux: Blind man solicits readers to fill “huge empty space”
Remember The Reader by Bernhard Schlink? Originally published in Germany in 1995 it went on to sell, after an Oprah push, over two million copies in the U.S. and became the first German book to top The New York Times bestseller list. It focused on an illiterate German women with a Nazi past who seduced a younger boy so that he may read to her. Well here is a new twist on the intriguing theme. The sign above recently appeared in the window of a bookshop in London. Andrew Bailey suffers from the degenerative disease Friedreich’s ataxia and has been unable to read for the...
Standing, Lying Down, Naked…Unusal Work Habits of Great Writers
via Ninja Essays
Five Book Salute to Halloween
Are you ready to get your spook on? October is here and that can only mean that Halloween is right around the corner. Here are a few bookish goodies to help you get in the mood. The Penguin Book of Witches. Edited by Katherine Howe, 2014. Who better to give us a bit of witch history than Katherine Howe, a direct descendant of three accused Salem witches. Starting with the few scant mentions of witches in the Bible and taking us through the Salem Witch trails Howe provides nothing but source material to illuminate just how slippery and unconvincing the...
Transforming Moscow’s Libraries; All 448 of them!
Dostoyevsky Library Interior Before and After Renovation. Image © Frans Parthesius A beautiful thing is happening to the public libraries of Moscow. Armed with extensive research on the benefits of a vibrant public library system a group comprised of the architectural firm SVESMI, lead by Sverdlov, urban designer Paola Viganò, and the Muscovite bookseller Boris Kupriyanov got the ear of Moscow’s Culture Minister. In a nutshell: the number of libraries per capita in Moscow rivals other European cultural capitals yet, prior to the inception of this project, were unpopular and disproportionately underpopulated public places. The vast majority of them remain dense with unfulfilled potential...