Literature and Poetry
Dickens and His World: Bits and Pieces from From Oxford's Bodleian Library and the Great Dickens Christmas Fair
The Bodleian exhibition aims to recreate Dickens’s world through these ephemeral items, taking visitors on a journey back to his time with themes such as Victorian London and its amusements, the coming of the railways, domestic entertainment and children’s school life. A number of Dickens's works have been recorded by the Libraries, bringing London to life. The Bodleian exhibition illustrates the relationship between the fictional worlds that Charles Dickens created in his novels and the historical reality in which he lived. He depicted the social realities of his time with what Henry James noted as his ‘solidity of specification,’ an extraordinary clarity and particularity. The actualities of life, especially life in London - the setting for almost all his fiction - were of singular importance to him. When we read Dickens we experience Victorian life. more »
Benjamin Franklin and the First Age that Witnessed Extensive Communication Among People Across the World
This year marks 275 years since Benjamin Franklin helped to found the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States. He served as the postmaster for North America when the colonies were under British rule, and he was instrumental in establishing a postal service system, known today as the United States Postal Service. A lot of Franklin’s letters basically say things like, “Please introduce me to this famous person. Please share my ideas with that influential person.” If there had been LinkedIn, he would have signed up. more »
Jo Freeman's Review of A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope and Innocence Lost
Jo Freeman reviews and writes: Race and war entwined during the riots. Most people have forgotten that the first riot of the decade was in Birmingham in 1963. They spread North in 1964, but it was the Watts riot of 1965 that really woke people up. The number of riots peaked in 1967 but didn’t decline until the next decade. The riots as much as anything pushed race off of the public agenda in favor of war. Racial progress stalled while the anti-war movement thrived. The Sixties was a period of major cultural change, so it is fitting that this book comes out as we enter another such era. more »
Joan Cannon Asked: What is a Book Club? An Old-Fashioned Book Report? A Program Given By an Author? What Is the Accepted Practice?
Joan L. Cannnon wrote: A year or so ago, I was invited to attend a tea given by the combined membership of all the book clubs in the town where I now live. A presentation was scheduled for the proprietor of the much-loved local independent book store cum gift shop. She is a legend in the area for her teas as well as author signings and the eclectic choices in her store. There were at least 300 in attendance. The place (the largest fellowship hall available in a local church) was crammed. It seems that in a town with a population under 25,000, there are dozens of book clubs! more »