At The New Yorker, Sarah Miller humorously learns why only positive book reviews might be a bad thing. “If St. Petersburg is the Little Engine That Could of city names, then the main character, Raskolnikov, is the Little Engine That Could of elderly pawnbroker murderers,” she writes in her review of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.
False Positive
Aposthropocalypse
There’s an Apostrophe Protection Society, and it’s in crisis mode.
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Social Poetry
“Shelley once called poets the ‘unacknowledged legislators of the world,'” but has the social role of poetry changed since Shelley’s time?
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“while the pages of Romeo and Juliet have been nearly worn to shreds, King John has been left virtually intact.”
Oxford University’s Bodleian Library is working to make the first edition of Shakespeare’s collected works, published in 1623 and carrying the physical wear and tear of 17th century readers, online for free.
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Unlikely Correspondence
In a compelling personal piece for The Paris Review, Nick Antosca recounts his unlikely relationship with a “faceless confidant.”
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