Category Archives: Books and Reading
Stephen Crane’s War
If you’ve read anything by Stephen Crane, there’s a pretty good chance it was The Red Badge of Courage. Crane’s Civil War story is renowned for its insider perspective on combat experience—what it was like to be surrounded by gunsmoke, … Continue reading
2013 Student Book Collecting Contest Winners Announced
Congratulations to the winners of the 2013 Betty and Edgar Sweren Student Book Collecting Contest. The annual competition, which is sponsored by the Friends of the Libraries and was endowed in 2007 by longtime Friends Betty and Edgar Sweren, recognizes … Continue reading
John Pendleton Kennedy: Author, Statesman, Patriot
The following blog post was written by David Farris of The Sheridan Libraries Reserves Department. While a graduate student at the Peabody Institute, David worked as a student employee at the Peabody Library. There, he spearheaded a project to identify … Continue reading
The Further Adventures of the Digital Humanities
We told you last year about the hot, new field in humanities research, the Digital Humanities, or DH for short. Well, in the past 12 months, it hasn’t cooled off in the least! Sessions on DH at this year’s MLA … Continue reading
Stephen Crane’s Career
How do you become a professional writer? It helps to have a family member provide a model—or better yet, both parents and a couple of siblings. It also helps to have access to a good public library—and to read voraciously, … Continue reading
Game of HopSFA
Are you thrilled that Game of Thrones has returned? Are you a fan of fantasy board games and sci fi movies? Then prepare to immerse yourself in JohnCon 2013 during the weekend of April 5-7. JohnCon is the annual convention … Continue reading
Goodbye Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe, the renowned Nigerian novelist and essayist, died on March 22, at age 82. Achebe was best known for his ground-breaking novel of 1958, Things Fall Apart, which dramatizes the tensions between indigenous African culture and British colonial values. … Continue reading
The Writing Life
If you’re a professional writer, you probably think a lot about how to get your work under the eyes of readers. You may weigh the advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing—using a service like CreateSpace on Amazon—against traditional publishing. (With self-publishing, … Continue reading
A Sense of Places
Most of us are aware that an atlas is “a bound collection of maps often including illustrations, informative tables, or textual matter,” as Merriam-Webster defines it. You’ve probably consulted an atlas before, those showing political boundaries, topographic features, and major towns and … Continue reading
Rebellion and Revolution
Revolution – “…the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed.” Rebellion – ”…usually unsuccessful defiance of or resistance to an established government.” The Hunger Games is the recounting of the rebellion or revolution … Continue reading