Nabokov once claimed “there is no reading, only rereading.” In an essay for the New York Review of Books, Tim Parks pursues the “key to rereading,” taking The Waste Land and Mrs. Dalloway as his test cases.
Why Reread?
Add Poems to Your Curriculum
Are you familiar with “Teach This Poem“? If not you should be. This organization just won the National Book Foundation’s 2018 Innovations in Reading Prize. Their literary social impact mission? Help teachers add poetry to their curriculum; “Each week, The Academy of American Poets emails out a poem along with interdisciplinary information — classroom discussion questions and multimedia offerings like maps, videos, photography, and related reading suggestions. Everything is curated to help teachers incorporate poetry into the classroom experience.” Find out more about the prize and the org here.
Said the Gramophone
Over at Words Without Borders, Esther Allen considers how to translate a song. As she puts it, “A song that almost everyone in a given culture at a given moment knows is a unique cultural artifact, a crystallized collective experience, a profound trigger that sets off a complex string of shared emotions.” Pair with Magdalena Edwards’s Millions essay on songs as triggers.
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New Harvey
At Variety‘s blog, news that Steven Speilberg has signed on to his next project: A remake of Harvey, the Pulitzer-winning 1944 play and beloved 1950 Jimmy Stewart movie about a man, Elwood P. Dowd, and his friendship with an invisible giant rabbit.
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Browne’s Guide to Science Writing
Want to write about science? Let Sir Thomas Browne, “17th-century know-it-all,” show you how.
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Lolita, in the Margins
When Vladimir Nabokov developed a screen adaptation for Lolita, his director Stanley Kubrick declared it the “best ever written in Hollywood”–meaning, it seems, most gorgeously novelistic, evocative, readable. Here’s a short excerpt of his screenplay with original margin notes.
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So Shiny
Our good friends at The Morning News just rolled out a spiffy new look this morning! It’s in support of their “news for nerds” mission, which we also wholeheartedly support. Congrats, guys. Might we suggest you celebrate by reading its co-founder (and Year in Reading alum) Rosecrans Baldwin‘s very funny diary from a few years back?