“Russian author Leo Tolstoy’s entire body of work – all 90 volumes – along with comprehensive biographical materials has been posted online and will be available for free, a descendant said.”
Digital Tolstoy
“He was a sassy youngster”
“He was a sassy youngster…[A]s to burning the epistle up or not—it never occurred to me to do anything at all: what the hell did I care whether he was pertinent or impertinent? he was fresh, breezy, Irish: that was the price paid for admission—and enough: he was welcome!” Turns out Walt Whitman and Bram Stoker were pen pals.
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Building the Library of Utopia
Google ran into a wall of litigation when it tried to create a public digital archive of every book in the world. Now a team of academics is taking on the challenge. Nicholas Carr examines whether Robert Darton and Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society can succeed where Silicon Valley failed. Also be sure to check out our review of Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.
On American Sonnets
Stephanie Burt writes about Terrance Hayes, Wanda Coleman's American Sonnets, confinement, and the mechanics of lyric poetry.
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Borges’ Self-Portrait
Maud Newton posts a self-portrait by Jorge Luis Borges: “When he drew this, because Burt Britton asked him to, Borges was blind.”
With a Twist
In the New York Times, a review of 2013 Year in Reading alum Olivia Laing’s new book, which delves into the alcoholism of Hemingway, Fitzgerald and six other famous writers. Among the biographical tidbits in the book: Tennessee Williams had a brandy Alexander every day when he lived in New Orleans.
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