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 […]
Readers as Illustrators
Human beings are hard-wired to rely on visual perception; perhaps this explains why we really, really like to look at pictures. And when we read, we often want to see […]
The Movies Are Coming, So Read the Books Now
Everyone knows that the book is always better than the movie, right? (Of course there are exceptions: I could never get through The Shining, so finally saw the movie. But […]
88 Books that Shaped America
I love lists. I especially love lists of books. The Library of Congress recently complied a list of the 88 books that shaped America. Note, that this isn’t a list […]
Murder in the Archives
Hey all you fictioneers: I’m waiting with bated breath to read a book with the above title. Please, can someone write it? Of course, an archive is in many ways […]
Literary Baltimore: Part 3
While Edgar Allan Poe and H.L. Mencken are perhaps the best known literary names associated with Baltimore, there are many other writers who have lived or worked here. If you […]