Culture and Arts

Lady Jane Grey was Queen of England for just 9 days until she was driven from the throne and sent to the Tower of London to be executed. Painter Paul Delaroche found many of the doomed to be his subjects - Joan of Arc, Marie Antoinette - or did he especially seek them out? more »

Besides the sobering lessons in Edwards's book is that sad reality that most of the time the American press and public prefers a dumbed-down version of the political spouse. The media wants not even sound bites from our political spouses, but 'picture bites' usually of Barbie-doll like perfection, demure, uncomplicated and ultimately quiet. more »

"If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book. She speaks of her sorrows, in a way that fills us with melancholy, and dissolves us in tenderness, at the same time that she displays a genius which commands all our admiration." more »

Amitav Ghosh's In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale published by Vintage is an early non-fiction work by the noted Indian novelist (whose work The Glass Palace is a favorite of mine). Ghosh wrote In an Antique Land after living in 1980 as a graduate student in an Egyptian farming village. He excavates a little known aspect of Middle Eastern history in a book that moves back and forth from the 12th century to the 20th, detecting and describing the interactions, real and imagined, of an Indian slave and local Egyptian merchants, holy men, and sorcerers.Gardeners and lovers of mysteries will be pleased to learn that several of the books of British born (John) Beverley Nichols have been re-issued by Timber Press. In Down the Garden Path, I chortled at lines such as "I would rather be made bankrupt by a bulb merchant than by a chorus girl." I expect the same witty, high-spirited writing in Merry Hall. And if I wish my flowers served up with a bit of murder and sleuthing, Nichols' detective novel, *The Moonflower, praised by novelists Somerset Maugham and Elizabeth Bowen, also rests on my to-read pile.  more »