Well, we wouldn't have Shakespeare's sonnets if plague hadn't closed all the London theaters; we wouldn't have Henry James' novels (a mixed blessing) if he'd struck gold as a playwright; and we definitely wouldn't have Dante's "Comedy" if the poet hadn't been driven out of Florence. In other words, misfortune's often been the handmaiden to … Continue reading Second only to Paris … 700 years ago, that is
Category: Books
Books, new and old, in fiction and nonfiction.
Strange & Norrell: Where did that novel go?
A republished post by fantasy novelist Jo Walton asks a poignant question, Whatever happened to Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell? "It did about as well as any book can do," Walton writes, "….but five years later, it doesn't seem to have had any impact." Walton's piece first appeared in 2010 (hence the five years remark … Continue reading Strange & Norrell: Where did that novel go?
You didn’t get rid of that book, did you?
Yes, I nearly did. Elizabeth Wayland Barber's The Dancing Goddesses: Folklore, Archaeology, and the Origins of European Dance (W.W. Norton) almost escaped my home. It wasn't any fault on the book's part--on mine. Have you done this before? I hadn't picked it up since it was published early last year, and as I went about … Continue reading You didn’t get rid of that book, did you?
Nick Owchar 
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