As you’ve no doubt heard, The Hobbit (first published in 1937) will soon be coming to a theater near you. Not once, but three times. Each of J.R.R. Tolkien’s three […]
Autumn Light
As we settle into the new semester, the oppressive heat of the summer sun has eased as we rush past the autumnal equinox, and our wobbling top of a planet […]
Introducing Mo Yan
The Nobel Prize in Literature 2012 was awarded to the Chinese author, Mo Yan. Mo Yan is perhaps best known to the Western audience through a successful film adaptation of […]
Getting EBL E-books
What’s EBL, and why should I care? EBL (Electronic Book Library) is one of the JHU libraries’ e-book “packages” that we buy so that you can have access to many, […]
Happy 101st!
The world of 20th-century Irish literature can feel dominated by certain giants looming over the rest; Joyce, Beckett, Yeats, and Heaney have, and deserve, their impressive positions. Nonetheless, certain names […]
China in Ten Words
How is it possible to summarize a country as complex as China in ten words? Yu Hua, a renowned novelist in China, did just that. In his first work of […]
The End of the Book?
If someone said that recent technological advances made the printed book, as the conveyor of knowledge and information, obsolete, would you think this prediction a recent one? What about a […]
Company Histories: Heroes & Happy Endings
Many of us have been entertained in recent years by newspaper and television reports, books, and even biopics about how clever e-entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook and Steve […]
Adventures of the General Jewish Encyclopedia
Looking into MSEL’s collections can lead you to travel across continents and to share incredible adventures. Editing and publishing books can become quite an endeavor when it meets history’s turmoil. […]
Growing up and Grown Up: Memoir Graphic Novels
Graphic novels can be great for relaxed summer reading and for intriguing stories (see our posts “Get Graphic!” and “Summer Reading: On the Go!”). But, graphic novels are not afraid […]