A Study of the New Latvian National Library
Last summer when I was in Latvia for the Positivus Music Festival, I was lucky enough to go to the soft opening of the new National Library of Latvia,when it was just barely open....
Category: books
I’d forgotten all about this Wizard of Oz poster from Latvia
I just stumbled over this poster of a Wizard of Oz-ish theatrical production in Latvia in my photo library. It’s kind of awesome, considering that I read and re-read all the Wizard of Oz...
Austin Public Library Branch Offering Mystery Book Dates!
It often seems that the way we celebrate Valentine’s Day in this country is all about making single people feel bad and getting couples to spend money on each...
Book Club: Why it’s Easy to Fall in Love via Letters.
Late in January my book club at Southwestern University had possibility the most sprinted book club discussion I’ve ever witnessed. The book we were discussing was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie...
It’s Your Last Week to Check Out “Portal to Bohemia”
The 1920’s are often seen as a golden age of literature and art. For example, Woody Allen’s Golden Globe winning art house blockbuster “Midnight in Paris” features Owen Wilson’s character Gil repeatedly rhapsodizing about...
“An Evening of Censorship” aka: The Dionysium at “Banned, Burned, Seized and Censored”
In this Internet age, censorship isn’t much of a going concern in America. Yet, things were different in this country back when cars had a rumble seat, a lady never went out without her...
Books: The President is a Sick Man
I really couldn’t have picked a worse book to keep me company as I stayed up late with the ouchy results of some long-dreaded dental work. It wasn’t that the book was bad, it’s...
Reading the Book “One Day” Moments Before the Movie Came Out!
On my way back to Austin from my summer adventures, I read the novel One Day by David Nicholls. I read it in pretty much one giant gulp. While I had toyed with the...
Madness at the Movies
Recently, I’ve watched both the French film Seraphine (2008) and the most recent cinematic version of Jane Eyre. The representation of madness in these films couldn’t be much different. In Seraphine–based on the real...
Hanging Out With Keith Richards…the Don Draper of Rock ‘n’ Roll
While I was sick with post SXSW-crud, I spent a lot of the time in my cough-medicine haze sucking down the 547 pages of Keith Richards very readable autobiography, Life. Nearly every publication on...
