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The Book Bench

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/

A blog, on literary matters great and small.

Posts per week: 28

Recent Articles

1,000 Words: Engulfed in Books

 

Published 7 hours ago by Thessaly La Force at The Book Bench

Great images of books from around the world and the Web. Two photographers write in: In the Chaucer Bookstore in Canterbury (made famous by Chaucer, of course), a young woman is transformed into a faceless reader, engulfed by ...

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Covers Contest: Grand Prize Winner

 

Published 13 hours ago by Eric Lach at The Book Bench

For our shopping-themed contest this week, we got more answers than ever before. Now we know what it must feel like to work retail on Black Friday. Many responded, but only one can win. The fastest correct responder this week was Andrew Jordan, of ...

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Pen Pals

 

Published 14 hours ago by Elizabeth Clark at The Book Bench

Where do you begin when you decide to write to everyone in the world? The artists Lenka Clayton and Michael Crowe began with Cushendall, Ireland. During April of 2009, all four hundred and sixty-seven of Cushendall’s households ...

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Cheap Are US

 

Published 16 hours ago by Vicky Raab at The Book Bench

“What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months ...

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In the News: Hot Brontës, Tiger's Physics Lesson

 

Published 16 hours ago by Ian Crouch at The Book Bench

The “Twilight” movies have paved the way for several new film adaptations of books by the Brontë sisters. Shirley Dent argues that a new slang version of “Julius Caesar” patronizes both kids and adults .  ...

1,000 Words: Doppelgänger

 

Published 31 hours ago by Macy Halford at The Book Bench

Great images of books from around the world and the Web. A reader writes in: “Our cat, Wednesday, vs. Bulgakov’s Behemoth, on the cover of ‘The Master and Margarita.’ ” Photograph by Anna Rybakov.  ...

Grinch is the New Santa

 

Published 34 hours ago by Jenna Krajeski at The Book Bench

There might be some good things to be said for the holiday spirit—that it brightens otherwise dreary winters, that it brings together families, that it inspires goodwill—but it’s not entirely amusing. Think of the ...

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A New View on Crowdsourcing

 

Published 36 hours ago by Keith Lubeley at The Book Bench

It's perhaps odd that the most popular feature on Andrew Sullivan's political blog The Daily Dish has nothing to do with politics. "The View from Your Window" shares reader-submitted photos of, well, the views from their windows. The ...

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Covers Contest: Shopping Spree

 

Published 38 hours ago by Eric Lach at The Book Bench

The Contest is back this week. Thank you to those who wrote in with your concerns. After a restful Thanksgiving hiatus, we are refocussed and rededicated to the Contest cause. We’d also like to take this moment to say that you, dear reader, are ...

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A Swift Pleasure

 

Published 40 hours ago by Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn at The Book Bench

Amidst all the mutterings about plans for a Harry Potter theme park, we’ve discovered an even quirkier way for bookish kids to get their kicks: Valencia’s Parque Gulliver , a jungle gym in the shape of Lemuel Gulliver , his ...

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In the News: Discovering Dickens, Golden Gloves

 

Published 40 hours ago by Ian Crouch at The Book Bench

The Morgan Library and Museum offers an inside look at Dickens's original manuscript for "A Christmas Carol." McDonald's uses poetry to sell burgers in Britain. "Sweet Thunder," a new biography of Sugar Ray Robinson, reveals that the ...

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1,000 Words: Books Make the Man

 

Published 2 days ago by Macy Halford at The Book Bench

Great images of books from around the world and the Web. Following the death last year of the Australian journalist P. P. (Paddy) McGuinness, his ten-thousand-book private library was auctioned off. The design firm Whybin/TBWA  ...

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Ask an Academic: Why Women Have Sex

 

Published 2 days ago by Sally Law at The Book Bench

In 2007, Cindy M. Meston and David M. Buss, both psychology professors at the University of Texas at Austin, published a joint research paper on human sexuality titled “Why Humans Have Sex.” The answers of their study’s female ...

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Towering Books

 

Published 2 days ago by Monica Racic at The Book Bench

The massively enchanting (and meticulous) structures built by the installation artist Tom Bendtsen make me recall the endless fun of childhood fort-building, though of course my creations were on a smaller scale, and generally employed ...

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Dial M for Montaigne

 

Published 2 days ago by Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn at The Book Bench

The last time I tried to use a payphone it was winter in New York. I’d just moved here from Berlin, carrying two suitcases, a drowned German cell phone, and a deep nostalgia for Spree-side picnics. To my immense frustration, I soon ...

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In the News: Austen's Mysterious Demise, Little Devil Dylan

 

Published 2 days ago by Ian Crouch at The Book Bench

A new theory suggests that Jane Austen may have died from " tuberculosis caught from cattle ." Cormac McCarthy puts his Olivetti typewriter up for sale . Jonathan Littell wins the Bad Sex in Fiction Prize . The Global Language Monitor ...

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1,000 Words: Paper Nature

 

Published 3 days ago by Thessaly La Force at The Book Bench

Great images of books from around the world and the Web. The photographer writes: Each year my friend Jan comes up with a new way to give life to old books. In September 2009, the “Thésarbre” sprouted overnight in ...

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Deadlines

 

Published 3 days ago by Jenna Krajeski at The Book Bench

It’s the last day of November and I really hope that even in your post-turkey stupor you didn’t forget to finish your novel; that in stimulating digestive juices you didn’t neglect to stimulate creative ones; that your laziness did ...

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#1, Dick

 

Published 3 days ago by Macy Halford at The Book Bench

Do you bring a book along with you to the ballpark? Do you love the sexy sports-jersey look, but hate the game it represents? To put it another way, as the excellent online retailer Novel-T Press does : What if your heroes are found in ...

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In the Black

 

Published 3 days ago by Macy Halford at The Book Bench

Books had a great Black Friday, according to the National Retail Federation, accounting for 40.3 % of sales , and coming in second to clothing. Reports trickled in of “Going Rogue,” the Twilight series, and the Vampire Academy series ...

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Atwood's New Look

 

Published 3 days ago by Macy Halford at The Book Bench

Cover design is always important, but it’s maybe more so for an author with a large backlist whose works need to be repackaged—both to give them cohesion and to suit evolving tastes. Sometimes the results are not so great (really, ...

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In the News: Holiday Binge, “Blunder Woman”

 

Published 3 days ago by Ian Crouch at The Book Bench

The holiday season is the best time to publish books about drinking . For a donation, you can get your name in a new science-fiction novel. A French university brings Stendhal’s manuscripts into the digital age . Sarah Palin stars ...

1,000 Words: Handsome Bird

 

Published 8 days ago by Thessaly La Force at The Book Bench

Great images of books from around the world and the Web. Do you remember making these? Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! Photograph by Beth Kanter , CC BY 2.0 Have you taken a photograph of books worth 1,000 Words?  ...

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The Mental (and Amorous) Qualities of the Wild Turkey

 

Published 8 days ago by Macy Halford at The Book Bench

Well, Book Benchers, today marks the end of the pre-holiday season; also of the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of “On the Origin of Species”; and of the Book Bench’s blogging week. How to celebrate such an insignificant ...

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Viva Patrizia

 

Published 8 days ago by Nick Liptak at The Book Bench

Silvio Berlusconi, without much obvious effort, often seems like a character in a novel—not a great novel, but a hot-blooded one that involves football, corruption charges, and a lot of hot Italian sex. (O.K., so a great novel.) Now, ...

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Feasting with the Famous

 

Published 8 days ago by Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn at The Book Bench

Yesterday’s rumor that Taylor Swift plans to release a cookbook has to be false. Because what kind of just God would allow her to master cookbook-worthy recipes, like beef bourguignon or Earl Grey soufflés , when I’m still ...

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In the News: After Oprah, Roker Thrills

 

Published 8 days ago by Ian Crouch at The Book Bench

Publishers contemplate a world without Oprah . Ron Marshall, the C.E.O. of Borders, calls the bookstore chain's third-quarter losses "both difficult and disappointing." Blue lines written by the Roman poet Catullus are at the center of a  ...

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1,000 Words: Perfect Afternoon

 

Published 9 days ago by Thessaly La Force at The Book Bench

Great images of books from around the world and the Web. I need one that looks like this. Photograph by Dory Kornfeld , CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Have you taken a photograph of books worth 1,000 Words? E-mail us with caption and ...

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Things We Wish Were Real

 

Published 9 days ago by Macy Halford at The Book Bench

From the geniuses at the Onion : Noveller, the online macroblogging service that lets users post their impromptu narrative ruminations on modern life, society, and the nature of existence itself, celebrated its millionth post late last week, ...

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University Press Logos

 

Published 9 days ago by Monica Racic at The Book Bench

Earlier this fall, Yale University Press discontinued the iconic Paul Rand-designed logo it’s been using since 1985, and replaced it with a simpler one in the Yale typeface . (For now, the Web site still features Rand’s ...

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E-Mail Will Eat You Alive

 

Published 9 days ago by Keith Lubeley at The Book Bench

In 2009, the average office worker will spend forty-one per cent of her day reading and responding to e-mails. Such grim statistics abound in John Freeman’s new book “ The Tyranny of E-mail .” Freeman, the new editor of  ...

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Paper Dreams

 

Published 9 days ago by Macy Halford at The Book Bench

There is more than one way to experience the New Zealand writer Maurice Gee's vivid Auckland novel " Going West ," and this is the most magnificent, courtesy of the animation studio Andersen M . I watched it seven times in a row last night before ...

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In the News: Saving Satchmo, Where the 'Riled' Things Are

 

Published 9 days ago by Ian Crouch at The Book Bench

A new biography argues that Louis Armstrong was a better musician than people remember . Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposal to relocate Albert Camus’s remains to the Pantheon meets with resistance . The Telegraph reports that Spike ...

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1,000 Words: Coffee Break, Vienna

 

Published 10 days ago by Macy Halford at The Book Bench

Great images of books from around the world and the Web. Our reader in Vienna enjoys some travel reading with his cake and cappuccino. “Coffee Break, 11:10 am, Vienna,” by Peter Maides. Have you taken a photograph ...

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Toasting Turkeys

 

Published 10 days ago by Ian Crouch at The Book Bench

Just in time for the holidays, Bloomsbury U.S.A. has published a revised edition of Paul Dickson’s “ Toasts: Over 1,500 of the Best Toasts, Sentiments, Blessings, and Graces .” From the looks of it, not much has changed on the ...

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How do you solve a problem like Jane Austen?

 

Published 10 days ago by Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn at The Book Bench

She's the perfect girl in class: prim but popular, modest in manners but beloved by others, possessed of a secret wit. She makes me green with jealousy. She's Jane Austen. Like any Queen Bee, she has her entourage of followers, who emulate ...

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Igonvalue.com

 

Published 10 days ago by Macy Halford at The Book Bench

An amusing footnote to the exchange between Malcolm Gladwell and Steven Pinker that unfolded last week: someone anonymously purchased the domain name Igonvalue.com on the day Pinker’s review of Gladwell’s new book , “ What the ...

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In the News: Ricky and Eve, Scots on the Rocks

 

Published 10 days ago by Ian Crouch at The Book Bench

Ricky Gervais reads from the book of Genesis . Gordon S. Wood laments that academic history books are losing readers . Waldo Hunt, impresario of the modern pop-up book, dies at eighty-eight . In "On Thin Ice," Richard Ellis argues that ...

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1,000 Words: What Would Lenny Do?

 

Published 13 days ago by Thessaly La Force at The Book Bench

Great images of books from around the world and the Web. A reader wrote in with this photograph of his vintage paperback collection saying: If Lenny had been a librarian. You have to wonder. Probably wouldn’t be a very quiet ...

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The Food Issue: Salt

 

Published 13 days ago by Thessaly La Force at The Book Bench

We have a salt fetish, Adam Gopnik writes this week, because we want to bond with the pro cooks. “Why does my food never taste as good as yours?” I once heard a woman ask a chef at Blue Hill Stone Barns. “Salt,” he said. ...

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The Food Issue: Cooking Like Grandma

 

Published 13 days ago by Johanna Smith at The Book Bench

In honor of this week’s Food Issue, I dove into Patricia Tanumihardja’s “The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook.” The title appealed to me because I suspected that an Asian grandmother’s cooking would be far tastier than ...

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Period. Question mark.

 

Published 13 days ago by Jenna Krajeski at The Book Bench

Last night, I was late to the party for “ Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation .” The room at Rizzoli bookstore, on West Fifty-seventh Street, was crowded with older folks, all with the glossy book tucked under their arms, ...

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Who needs words?

 

Published 13 days ago by Reeves Wiedeman at The Book Bench

The introduction to David McCandless’s book, “ The Visual Miscellaneum ,” brags of its “minimum of text.” Indeed, the only page without a visual element in this series of charts and graphs and maps is a text-only ...

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Splish Splash

 

Published 13 days ago by Macy Halford at The Book Bench

The lush, lounging bodies captured in the photographer Jennette Williams's new folio " The Bathers " are removed from our world without being totally foreign. The photos were taken in modern-day ...

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In the News: Favored Flannery, Wily Wylie?

 

Published 13 days ago by Ian Crouch at The Book Bench

Readers select Flannery O'Connor's "The Complete Stories" as their favorite National Book Award winner ever . J. C. Penny ditches its giant biannual catalog . Disney stops production on an adaptation of "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the ...

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1,000 Words: Shelf Life

 

Published 14 days ago by Thessaly La Force at The Book Bench

Great images of books from around the world and the Web. A beautifully color-coördinated bookshelf, which the photographer defines as: col-or-co-or-di-nat-ed [kuhl-er-koh-awr-dn-ey-tid]—adjective. With all parts or ...

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Laughter in the Dark

 

Published 14 days ago by Thessaly La Force at The Book Bench

It was difficult to ignore the fact last night that Google was the official sponsor of the National Book Awards after-party, held at Cipriani’s Wall Street. “It’s our party,” one Googler said to a guest. Posters, printed ...

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Elect-a-Pundit

 

Published 14 days ago by Jessica Weisberg at The Book Bench

Nearly five thousand people entered the Washington Post’s America’s Next Great Pundit contest , which has its penultimate round of voting tonight (the final round will be held on Monday, and the winner will be announced Tuesday).  ...

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Season's Readings

 

Published 14 days ago by Sally Law at The Book Bench

Every year around this time, I come up with what can only be called my anti-resolutions: not a list of goals I hope to accomplish in the coming year, but rather a rundown of the things I won’t have done before the current year ends. It’s ...

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Kid Critics: Hamilton, Age 4

 

Published 14 days ago by Flora Armetta at The Book Bench

This week, I asked Hamilton, a four-year-old from New York, to show me some of his favorite books. He sat down (for some of the time, anyway) to share his choices with me and chat about good guys, bad guys, and what it really means to wrestle. ...

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