Saturday, February 27, 2016

Title fatigue

A funny old post I found while looking for some quotations for my talk this week: my life in book titles.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Closing tabs

Facebook continues, I think, to leach my attention away from blogging. A lot of tabs to close (and I lost a whole bunch when a browser shut down last week - should post these with more regularity!):

Jenny Diski on the island of lost words.

Colm Toibin on how Henry James' family tried to keep him in the closet post mortem.

Teju Cole revisits A House for Mr Biswas.

Garth Greenwell talks to Hanya Yanigahara (authors of two of my very favorite novels of recent years!).

Hilary Havens on digital paleography

Tudor underwear.

Jeremy Bentham's prison cookbook!

Istvan Hont's lectures on Rousseau and Adam Smith.

Last but not least, speed dating for rabbits.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

#122

These are the days when Birds come back -
A very few - a Bird or two -
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies resume
The old - old sophistries of June -
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee.
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear -
And softly thro' the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.

Oh sacrament of summer days,
Oh Last Communion in the Haze -
Permit a child to join -

Thy sacred emblems to partake -
Thy consecrated bread to take
And thine immortal wine!