William Safire dubs Fred Shapiro “Quotationeer Shapiro” in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine: On the analogy of “Dictionary Johnson,” we call Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the just-published Yale Book of Quotations (well worth the $50 price), “Quotationeer Shapiro.” Like that harmless drudge, as Sam defined “lexicographer,” Shapiro does original
This week, New York Magazine‘s “Approval Matrix,” the magazine’s “deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on [its] taste hierarchies,” includes Millennial Stages by Robert Brustein. The magazine placed it in the “Highbrow” and “Brilliant” quarter and called it an “essential collection of dramatic criticism.” View the entire Matrix here.
The New Republic has printed an insightful appraisal of famed historian Hugh Trevor-Roper’s capstone work, Europe’s Physician. Reviewer Peter Miller points out that doctors can provide a unique historical window into politics because of their trusted status, proximity to power, and necessary philosophical balancing of science, religion and humanity. “[I]t
“…the joy of reading this new book of quotations is just leafing all the way through it—you get to feel scholarly and stupid at the same time…” — Steve Inskeep, NPR: Morning Edition Listen in.
The Comics Journal recently reviewed Ivan Brunetti’s An Anthology of Graphic Fiction (Yale University Press, 2006). Dick Deppey gives two reviews: “One for newcomers to the new breed of comics, and one for those who already know their way around.” He went with the newcomers first: If you’re looking for
Posted by Alan Klein, author of the newly published GROWING THE GAME: The Globalization of Major League Baseball. For Major League Baseball (MLB), globalization is an important way of staving off a serious decline at its core. Despite having set records in attendance and revenue figures, as well as posting
How did the rulers of the Soviet Union pass the time during long Politburo meetings in the Kremlin? They doodled. Sketching on notebook pages, official letterheads, and the margins of draft documents, prominent Soviet leaders in the 1920s and 1930s amused themselves and their colleagues with drawings of one another.
Ivan Brunetti’s An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories made a big splash at the Small Press Expo a couple of weeks back. Ivan’s Schizo also scored an Ignatz Award for Outstanding Comic. In addition, awards went to two other cartoonists included in the Yale anthology: “Maakies” syndicated
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Mark Miller writes, “There are points of similarity between the political culture of late republican Rome and our own, but the differences reveal how far we have to go before we hit bottom — contrary to the dire warnings emanating from certain political quarters today.”
Listen to Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, author of Why Arendt Matters, discuss Hannah Arendt, her examination of totalitarianism, and the “banality of evil,” on NPR’s All Things Considered.