Literature and Poetry

"Could arts engagement have protective associations with survival? We analysed the longitudinal relation between receptive arts engagement and mortality across a 14 year follow-up period in a nationally representative sample of adults aged 50 and older. Risk of dying at any point during the follow-up period among people who engaged with cultural activities on an infrequent basis (once or twice a year) was 14% lower than in those with no engagement; for those who engaged on a frequent basis (every few months or more), the risk was 31% lower." more »

Julia Sneden wrote: The strangest Christmas of all was the Christmas of the Goose. John, my husband, was born in the wrong century. His vision of Christmas is informed by a heavy dose of Dickens and merrie olde England. It’s not enough to watch every version of A Christmas Carol that is shown on television, year after year. He hangs an Advent wreath over the center of the dining table. He sings along with the Advent hymns on a CD of the Canterbury Cathedral Choir. He sings The Boar’s Head in Latin as I carry in the roast. He reads Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales aloud to the family every Christmas Eve. He puts Christmas crackers at each place at table. He has even been known to remind us about Boxing Day. more »

Sections read like poetic romance, others like adventure, some like fantasy of the best and most convincing kind, some like philosophy. The pace varies much in the way one's daily experience might in a place where the only means of transport are one's own legs, horses, or boats without motors. The reader is fully immersed in a complete new life in a very few pages, and by the last of over a thousand, has been in some way imprinted. The outstanding characteristic of Islandia is that it will leave no reader unmoved, or even untouched. To make your way through this tour de force of imagination will change you, according to what aspect of it touches you most closely. more »

In 1849, Louisa wrote her first novel, The Inheritance, which was to remain hidden amongst her papers at Harvard University’s Houghton Library until two professors stumbled upon the 150-page manuscript in 1996. Previously, scholars had believed Louisa’s first novel was Moods, published in 1864. The Alcotts remained at Hillside, until Abby sold the property to Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1852. In 1853, they moved to another Concord home, Orchard House; the Alcotts lived at Orchard House until 1877. It was at Orchard House where, in 1868, Louisa wrote her classic family tale, Little Women, based on life at Hillside. more »