by bertbaby | Aug 28, 2013 | Book Reviews
August 28: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born on this day, as announced in the opening sentences of his four-volume autobiography: “On the 28th of August, 1749, at mid-day, as the clock struck twelve, I came into the world, at Frankfort-on-the-Main.”...
by bertbaby | Aug 27, 2013 | Book Reviews
The author of Night Film on the books she always keeps close at hand.
by bertbaby | Aug 27, 2013 | Book Reviews
August 27: On this day in 1841 James Fenimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer, last-written of the five Natty Bumppo/Leatherstocking books, was published. In “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences,” Mark Twain finds the novel guilty of breaking eighteen...
by bertbaby | Aug 16, 2013 | Book Reviews
How Irving Berlin’s patriotic tune became a shadow national anthem.
by bertbaby | Aug 16, 2013 | Book Reviews
August 16: Elvis Presley died on this day in 1977. The closing pages of Peter Guralnick’s monumental two-volume biography — Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love — attempt to capture the King’s freak-show funeral and to ignore the...
by bertbaby | Aug 15, 2013 | Book Reviews
August 15: “Woodstock Nation” was officially born on this day in 1969, when the legendary music festival opened in Upstate New York. Richie Havens recalls launching into his famous “FREE-dom!” improvisation, while Ravi Shankar describes the...
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