February 2019

Literary scholars often hear about dangers of presentism: we are warned against looking at the past for confirmation of our own progress — the distance between us and them — and against collapsing that distance, and seeing, Narcissus-like, our own reflections in long-ago lives and letters. But of course, the present always shapes our encounters with earlier texts, whether we’re reading them, writing about them or, in the case of Shakespeare, staging them. Not only do we inevitably view the past through the lens of our present, but our present also renders the past visible — or invisible — in shifting ways. Walter Benjamin tells us that history is “filled with the presence of the now.” And, as the now changes, so does the history.

From The Very Modern Anger of Shakespeare’s Women – Electric Literature

Speaking of bedrooms – books apparently aren’t allowed in there, as they are a room for “sleep and love”. This raises some questions. Does it mean that if you like reading a book in bed you must then go put it back elsewhere in the house just before falling asleep? Is one book (singular) in the bedroom fine but two or more forbidden? What if you do find a partner thanks to your attractive new flat and he also enjoys reading in bed, does this create a loophole? Should you read this singular book together at the same time? Any word on Kindles?

From Shelf policing: how books (and cacti) make women too ‘spiky’ for men | Books | The Guardian

Before I start, a disclaimer: All of this is, of course, highly subjective. I read nonfiction for enjoyment, and I enjoy nonfiction most when I am learning interesting things, or am guided to think in new ways. Preferably, claims should be backed by peer-reviewed studies, or presented as speculation otherwise. Either way, the author should be clear about this, and unbiased enough to present different sides of the issue.

With that out of the way, let’s look at the rules.

From 3 Rules for Choosing Nonfiction Books

There are two things that, when I encounter them in a book, immediately cause me to fall in love.

The word palimpsest
A giant, possibly magic, library (extra points for a Forbidden Section or two)
The two are not unrelated. A palimpsest is a book that has been one or more books before, with the older knowledge hidden just beneath the surface of the parchment, waiting to be unearthed. A giant library must, invariably, contain books with once-known, now-forgotten knowledge, just beyond that locked door over there.

But I have the key…

I hereby present a list of the very best novels featuring giant libraries filled with secrets.

From Novels with Giant Possibly Magical Libraries – Charlie Harrington – @whatrocks

Researchers at German institutions that have let their Elsevier subscriptions lapse while negotiating a new deal are hitting the paywall for the publisher’s most recent articles around 10,000 times a day, according to Elsevier — which publishes more than 400,000 papers each year.

But at least some German libraries involved in negotiating access to Elsevier say they are making huge savings without a subscription, while still providing any articles their academics request.

From Thousands of scientists run up against Elsevier’s paywall

E-readers and tablets are becoming more popular as such technologies improve, but research suggests that reading on paper still boasts unique advantages

From The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens – Scientific American – Scientific American in 2013

Dan Mallory, who writes under the name A. J. Finn, went to No. 1 with his début thriller, “The Woman in the Window.” His life contains even stranger twists.

From A Suspense Novelist’s Trail of Deceptions | The New Yorker

Late in his tenure as head of the Bodleian Library, E. W. B. Nicholson received an unusual letter from a History fellow at Balliol College, Oxford. The correspondent explained that he had been asked to enquire on behalf of a “Cambridge don” whether there existed “any Siberia attached to [the] Bodleian Library to which books are banished”. Nicholson knew that such a thing did exist, for he had personally overseen its creation. Established in 1882, it was dubbed the “Φ” (Phi) collection: this was the shelf mark used by the Bodleian to identify those texts deemed too obscene, libellous or otherwise risqué to be made available to undergraduate readers. While the origins of the name are uncertain, it seems to be a librarian’s joke bringing together a “Fie!” of disapproval, an evocation of the Greek word phaulos (base, worthless, wicked) and an ancient phallic pun.

From (S)ex libris – TheTLS

Both are world-famous authors who wrote some of their best known works in their sheds. But, as Roald Dahl’s centenary is celebrated across the country, his widow reveals how heavily the children’s author was influenced by Dylan Thomas’s hut when building his own.

From How Dylan Thomas’s writing shed inspired Roald Dahl – BBC News

You will not find me among either group; in the second instance out of hard experience but in the first out of love, pure love, from the time of my first encounter, circa 1979, with John Cheever’s all-too-brief preface to his Stories, which contains the following passage, in which I now detect a premonitory stirring, two decades ahead of schedule, of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay: “These stories seem at times to be stories of a long-lost world when the city of New York was still filled with a river light, when you heard the Benny Goodman quartets from a radio in the corner stationery store, and when almost everybody wore a hat.”

From To All the Introductions I’ve Loved Before