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Andrew Nagorski, award-winning journalist and senior editor at Newsweek International, is a fan of Nina Khrushcheva’s Imagining Nabokov: Russia Between Art and Politics. When asked by the blog "Writers Read," Nagorski said, "At a time when Putin’s Russia is once again claiming a special status and scorning the West and its concept of democracy, Nina Khrushcheva has written an extended meditation on one of that country’s great writers: Vladimir Nabokov.... Nabokov was a truly modern man, someone who offers a much-needed antidote to the increasingly narrow outlook of Russia’s current rulers."

This book offers the original hypothesis that the novels of Russian-turned-American writer Vladimir Nabokov are highly relevant to the political transformation underway in Russia today. Nina Khrushcheva suggests that Nabokov’s fictional Western characters can be useful guides for acquiring new skills that the advent of democracy, capitalism, and open borders requires.

You may have seen Khrushcheva in her appearance on the Russia Today network yesterday, talking about the upcoming Russian elections. If you missed it, be sure to tune in to CBC Radio (Canada) on Feb. 29th. She will appear on As It Happens to discuss both the elections and Imagining Nabokov.

If you want to see Khrushcheva in person, then go to the New School on March 7th, where she'll appear with Jack Matlock and Ian Buruma. For more information on that author event, click here.

Posting about Yale Press' foray into new media, the Freakonomics blog of the New York Times announced that the "free e-book movement has officially begun." They cite Yale Press titles like The Future of Reputation by Daniel Solove and The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler as recent developments in this new movement.

Solove wonders what this downloadable format will do to the publishing industry and books in general. On his blog, Concurring Opinions, Solove asks, "Is this trend a wise thing for publishers to do? Will it help sales? Hurt sales?" You can help answer these questions and voice your opinion about the issue by leaving a comment on the post.

The Future of Reputation explores the profound implications of personal information on the Internet, preserved forever even if it is false, biased, or humiliating. Brimming with examples of online gossip, slander, and rumor, the book discusses the tensions between privacy and free speech and proposes how to balance the two. What information about you is on the Internet?

Click here to listen to an interview with Solove on the Yale Press Podcast. Or to download The Future of Reputation as a free e-book, click here.

With the radical changes in information production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at a crucial moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler in The Wealth of Networks on the new information economy and our socio-political future. He discusses the legal and policy issues that confront us and warns that the Internet’s promise of greater individual freedom, cultural diversity, political discourse, and justice is by no means guaranteed unless we make the right decisions now.

For a free, e-book copy of The Wealth of Networks, click here.

Schools are usually closed on Martin Luther King, Jr. day. February is Black History Month but many kids are off for a whole week. Luckily there are some well-written books and related resources to take up the slack. One book can easily lead to another; read about the people who took a stand, scan the photos and artwork to get a feel for what it was like to be there and try to understand the culture of the time.

To more fully understand the Civil Rights movement, it helps to know your rights.

There are an overwhelming number of books on MLK,Jr. Where to start? A handful do a terrific job of giving an overview of the significance and impact of his his life.

Recognize his strength of character as a regular person who relied on a strong set of beliefs and those he admired to guide him in his philosophy of nonviolence.

He was not a lone voice. There were many who came before him
who had fought against discrimination and in support of equal rights for black Americans. And there were many, many others who fought along with him. People you might have heard of, like Rosa Parks, and others whose stories are still being told. Among those who did their part to fight for equality were singers, postmen, baseball players, schoolteachers and future Supreme Court Justices.


Dr. King's path was not an easy one to follow. Those who later practiced nonviolence on Freedom Rides got beaten and bloodied for their efforts.

The struggle was taken up on many fronts, including in the public schools. Read some first person accounts and histories of what it was like for kids who dreamed of freedom and fought to be allowed to go to a decent school.

Part of the difficulty came in simply making their voices heard. Most Americans were just living their ordinary lives. The culture of the 1950s and 60s was alive with people writing books, painting and a new kind of music called rock and roll.

Read the books, look at the art, and listen to the music of the time period. They are an important part of history.


Hear the beauty of Dr. King's oratory and the power of his words.

Especially in these winter months, it's hard to imagine a world without "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and other classic Frank Loesser tunes. Mark Steyn, reviewing Thomas L. Riis' Frank Loesser for the Wall Street Journal, realizes that "a world without Frank Loesser and 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' would be very cold indeed." Steyn calls Frank Loesser by Yale Press author Thomas L. Riis "a solid overview of an underappreciated talent." Steyn not only praises this "invaluable" book, but also Yale University Press as a whole for the "important and valuable Broadway Masters series of musicological studies." You can read the entire review here.

Frank Loesser, most famous for composing the ever-popular musical Guys and Dolls (1950), also wrote the music and lyrics for the Pulitzer prize-winning How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and other hits. This book is the first to bring the full story of Loesser’s life and creative achievement in Hollywood and on Broadway into the light.

Elsewhere in the Wall Street Journal, Max Holland listed the "Five Best" books on untangling the rise of conspiracy theories. Number 2 was Yale Press' Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America by Robert Alan Goldberg, which Holland called "unrivaled" for books published within the past decade. You can see Holland's entire list here.

You can tune in tomorrow to KERA Texas public radio to hear Michael Reid, author of Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America's Soul. His hour-long interview for Think with Krys Boyd will start at noon, February 12, and can be heard online here.

Latin America, home to half-a-billion people, the world's largest reserves of arable land, and 8.5 percent of global oil, is in the midst of a vast transformation. Michael Reid, a journalist with many years of experience in the region, explores Latin America's current shift to the political left, its struggle to compete economically, and the potential for democracy to flourish there.

Daniel Solove, author of The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, was recently interviewed by C-SPAN for their weekly series, "The Communicators." C-SPAN has now made the entire interview available on YouTube.

"The Communicators" is C-SPAN's weekly series that examines the people and events currently shaping telecommunications policy. Topics of the Solove interview included the use of the Internet as a tool for gossip and slander and the privacy issues raised by posting private information about others on chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs.

Daniel J. Solove is associate professor, George Washington University Law School, and an internationally known expert in privacy law. He is frequently interviewed and featured in media broadcasts and articles, and he is the author of The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age. He lives in Washington, D.C., and blogs at the popular law blog http://www.concurringopinions.com.

Click here to listen to an interview with the author on the Yale Press Podcast.

National African American History Month! Yale Press has a wide range of books covering this topic for you to check out. Here's just a sample:

Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist, edited by Susan Earle

In paintings, murals, and book illustrations, Aaron Douglas (1899–1979) produced the most powerful visual legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, prompting the philosopher and writer Alain Locke to dub him the “father of Black American art.” Working from a politicized concept of personal identity and a utopian vision of the future, the artist made a lasting impact on American art history and on the nation’s cultural heritage. Douglas’s role, as well as that of the Harlem Renaissance in general, in the evolution of American modernism deserves close scholarly attention, which it finally receives in this beautifully illustrated book.

Women's Rights and Transatlantic Antislavery in the Era of Emancipation, edited by Kathryn Kish Sklar and James Brewer Stewart

Approaching a wide range of transnational topics, the authors ask how conceptions of slavery and gendered society differed in the United States, France, Germany, and Britain; how women’s activism reached across national boundaries; how racial identities affected the boundaries of women’s activism; and what was distinctive about African-American women’s participation as activists. Their thought-provoking answers provide rich insights into the history of struggles for social justice across the Atlantic world.

Slavery and the Commerce Power: How the Struggle Against the Interstate Slave Trade Led to the Civil War, by David L. Lightner

Despite the United States’ ban on slave importation in 1808, profitable interstate slave trading continued. The nineteenth century’s great cotton boom required vast human labor to bring new lands under cultivation, and many thousands of slaves were torn from their families and sold across state lines in distant markets. Shocked by the cruelty and extent of this practice, abolitionists called upon the federal government to exercise its constitutional authority over interstate commerce and outlaw the interstate selling of slaves. This groundbreaking book is the first to tell the complex story of the decades-long debate and legal battle over federal regulation of the slave trade.

Coming soon in paperback:

The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible, by Allen Dwight Callahan

The Bible has profoundly influenced African Americans throughout history. From a variety of perspectives this wide-ranging book is the first to explore the Bible’s role in the triumph of the black experience. Using the Bible as a foundation, African Americans shared religious beliefs, created their own music, and shaped the ultimate key to their freedom—literacy. Allen Callahan highlights the intersection of biblical images with African-American music, politics, religion, art, and literature.

Coming soon:

A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City, by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
This book is the first to chronicle the lives of African American women in the urban north during the early years of the republic. A Fragile Freedom investigates how African American women in Philadelphia journeyed from enslavement to the precarious status of “free persons” in the decades leading up to the Civil War and examines comparable developments in the cities of New York and Boston.

And for more Yale Press books on African American history, click here.

In the wake of recent news stories about internet privacy and cyber-vigilantes, Daniel Solove, author of The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, has continued to share his expertise in a variety of articles and forums. Here is a brief list of some sites where Solove has appeared:

• For their January 21 article "Keeping Teens Safe Online," ConsumerAffairs.com asks Solove about how teens view the Internet, and what parents can do.
• The Washington Post posted the second-half of "Privacy, Free Speech and Anonymity on the Internet," the transcript of Solove's two-day online discussion, in which he answered questions from the public.
• The Arizona Daily Star turned to Solove for their story on the rise of shame sites for bad tippers, aggressive drivers, adulterers, and more.
• The San Francisco Chronicle profiled Joanne McNabb of the California state Internet Security Office, who, after reading "adviser" Daniel Solove's book, is changing California laws based upon his book's suggestions.
• In TechNewsWorld's article on the increase in self-Googling, Solove explains the new definition of privacy.
• In Newsweek's Periscope section, Daniel Solove is consulted for an article on college campus gossip sites.

Today from 4:30 to 5:30, at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Solove will give the Distinguished Lecture in Law and Technology. This event is free and open to the public. If you can't make it, then you can instead catch the live webcast at http://law.case.edu/lectures. Click here for more information.

Read an excerpt from The Future of Reputation, or browse the table of contents, or visit Solove's website or blog.

Yale University Press will publish a unique exhibition catalogue for "blog.mode: addressing fashion," an exhibit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's recent fashion acquisitions. The curators are inviting visitors to comment on the exhibit's blog, creating a dialogue with the public about the art. The best of these comments will be selected for the exhibition catalogue, to be released next year.

In an article for the San Francisco Chronicle, curator Harold Koda says, "If it's a success, we think it will be like being part of a really nice dinner party. We want to know what people think about thigh-high hooker boots from the 1920s, or an 18th century dress. We all become one conversation, which is very intimate."

The exhibit opens tomorrow, December 18th, and will run until April 13th, 2008. For more information, click here. To visit the exhibit's blog, click here.

Thanks to The New Republic staff blogs The Stump and The Plank for sending their readers a heads-up on Election 2008: A Voter's Guide. This book, written by Franklin Foer and the Editors of The New Republic, is part of Yale's A New Republic Book series. Here's what the editors said about it:

We've anthologized our profiles of the presidential contenders just in time for Channukah...well, Christmas. Our election guide, published by Yale University Press, collects some of our classics into one pleasurable volume: Mike Crowley on Hillary and the War; Ryan Lizza on Bill Richardson and Barack Obama; Michelle Cottle on Fred Thompson; Jason Zengerle on John Edwards; Tom Edsall on Rudy. It has new essays by John B. Judis and Franklin Foer. Stick it by the john for perusing. Stuff it in stocking. Your Uncle Sammy will love it!

Featuring the writers and editors of THE NEW REPUBLIC, this handbook for the 2008 presidential election contains information every citizen needs as we head into the primaries. THE NEW REPUBLIC'S Election 2008: A Voter's Guide includes deeply reported, psychologically rich profiles of the candidates and a compendium of facts and figures about the hopefuls. Marked throughout by the irreverent wit, style, and intelligence of THE NEW REPUBLIC, this will be the indispensable guide to the 2008 election season.

Read an excerpt from the book, or view the table of contents.

Claudia Gryvatz Copquin's newly released The Neighborhoods of Queens is receiving lots of positive attention this week.

The New York Daily News ran an article on the book's release, saying "Look out, Queens, because your bible is coming. A 265-page book with intricate maps, historic photos and fascinating tidbits about the nation's most diverse county is already racking up requests on Amazon.com."

The New York Post calls the book "excellent" and the New York Observer says it's "one of those books where you can open it to any page and find something interesting."

As previously posted, Book Culture in Manhattan will host "An Evening with Claudia Gryvatz Copquin" on Thursday, December 6 at 7 p.m. She will discuss the book and her childhood in Queens, with a Q&A, book signing, and reception.

And on Saturday, December 8, at 1:30 p.m., there will be a book party at the Queens Museum of Art, Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Along with Copquin herself, speakers will include Kenneth T. Jackson, General Editor of Yale's Neighborhoods of New York City series, and Peter H. Kostmayer, President of Citizens Committee for New York City.

If you can't get to any of these events, you don't have to miss out. You can read Copquin's interview with Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell, the blogger behind K.C.'s Write For You, where Copquin discusses Queens, her book, and life as a writer.

Claudia Gryvatz Copquin is an award-winning freelance journalist who immigrated to Queens from South America with her family in the late 1960s. She now resides on Long Island.

The Yale Daily News ran an article on Anthony Kronman's new book, Education's End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life. The article, found here, discussed the impact of Kronman's ideas upon the Yale campus, including how Kronman "inspired" University President Richard Levin for his annual freshman address.

Education's End makes a passionate plea to revive the humanities’ lost tradition of preparing young people to address life’s most important question, what living is for. Tony Kronman explores how political correctness and the research ideal have led the humanities astray, and he argues that the study of life’s meaning is an essential component in higher education.

James Prosek, author and illustrator for Yale University Press' recently released Tight Lines: Ten Years of the Yale Anglers' Journal, wrote a short essay for the Outdoors section of the New York Times. The piece, published on November 28th, describes in painterly prose his trip to Alaska with an old mentor:

When I was 14, I was caught fishing illegally in a drinking-water reservoir by a game warden named Joe Haines. Instead of giving me a ticket, he took me under his wing.

I learned a lot of things from Haines: how to find edible mushrooms in the woods or four-leaf clovers in the yard; how to catch blue crabs and find razor clams; and how to spear, skin and cook eels.

To continue reading the piece, click here.

In addition, Prosek and Alexis Surovov came on WNPR's Where We Live to talk about fly fishing, the Yale Anglers' Journal, and Tight Lines. To listen to that show, click here.

Prosek also came into the studio for the Yale Press Podcast, which you can hear by clicking here.

This year marks the centenary year of the state of Oklahoma. So, Tim Carter, author of Oklahoma!: The Making of an American Musical, is speaking today in a lecture at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. This "informative, entertaining, and topical tribute to Oklahoma (state and musical)" is part of the Met's "The Sound of Broadway" series. Also, keep on the lookout for Bud Elder's interview with Carter on WKY Radio, Oklahoma City.

For more information on the lecture, click here.

Oklahoma! premiered on Broadway in 1943 under the auspices of the Theatre Guild, and today it is performed more frequently than any other Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. In this book Tim Carter offers the first fully documented history of the making of this celebrated American musical.

Drawing on research from rare theater archives, manuscripts, journalism, and other sources, Carter records every step in the development of Oklahoma! The book is filled with rich and fascinating details about how Rodgers and Hammerstein first came together, the casting process, how Agnes de Mille became the show’s choreographer, and the drafts and revisions that ultimately gave the musical its final shape. Carter also shows the lofty aspirations of both the creators and producers and the mythmaking that surrounded Oklahoma! from its very inception, and demonstrates just what made it part of its times.

Read an excerpt, or view the table of contents.

Aviation History Month! Check out some of the Yale University Press books that just fly off the shelves.

A Passion for Wings: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1908-1918, by Robert Wohl

This elegantly written, copiously illustrated book presents the first cultural history of the pioneering phase of aviation. Robert Wohl's fascinating story describes Wilbur Wright and other colorful early aeronauts, aces such as Baron von Richthofen, and the enthusiastic responses to the implications of aviation by such writers and artists as H. G. Wells, Franz Kafka, Kazimir Malevich, Robert Delaunay, Gabriele D'Annunzio, and Emile Driant.

The Spectacle of Flight: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1920-1950, by Robert Wohl

This extraordinary account of the development of aviation takes us from Charles Lindbergh’s dramatic New York-Paris flight to the horrifying bombing campaigns of World War II. Robert Wohl recaptures in words and illustrations an era when a wide-ranging cast of characters—among them millionaire Howard Hughes, Italian dictator Mussolini, and architect Le Corbusier—fell under aviation’s spell.

The Unknown Battle of Midway: The Destruction of the American Torpedo Squadrons, by Alvin Kernan

What really happened at the Battle of Midway, one of the greatest naval victories of the Second World War? This wrenching book, told by a survivor of the battle, provides the first accurate account and explanation of the devastating losses to America’s torpedo squadrons: only 7 of 51 planes returned, only 29 of 127 crewmen survived, and not a single torpedo hit its target.

Read an excerpt or view the table of contents.

From San Francisco to Washington D.C., Yale University Press authors are speaking across the country.

According to the Washington Post Literary Calendar, Daniel J. Solove will appear tonight at 6:30 P.M. at the Borders Books in downtown Washington D.C. He's going to discuss and sign copies of his new book, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet. For more information, call 202-466-4999, or click here.

Daniel J. Solove is associate professor, George Washington University Law School, and an internationally known expert in privacy law. He is frequently interviewed and featured in media broadcasts and articles, and he is the author of The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age. He lives in Washington, D.C., and blogs at the popular law blog http://www.concurringopinions.com.

Also in Washington D.C., Politics and Prose will host Janet Malcolm, author of Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice tomorrow at 7 P.M. For more information on this free event, click here.

Janet Malcolm is the author of The Journalist and the Murderer, The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, and Reading Chekhov, among other books. She writes for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books and lives in New York City.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Trita Parsi, author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States, will be speaking to the World Affairs Council of Northern California. Tomorrow at 6 P.M., he will discuss the relations between Israel, Iran, and the United States. Registering online in advance is recommended to assure seating. For more information, or to register online, click here.

Later this week, Parsi will be the keynote speaker at the annual dinner for the North Suburban Peace Initiative in Evanston, IL. The dinner will be on Saturday, November 10th, from 6 to 9 P.M. Reservations can be made today online. For more information, click here.

Trita Parsi is president, National Iranian American Council, and adjunct professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University SAIS. He writes frequently about the Middle East and has appeared on BBC World News, PBS News Hour, CNN, and other news programs. He lives in Washington, D.C.

In honor of the Halloween spirit, check out these spooks--I mean books--from Yale University Press.

Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality by Paul Barber

In this engrossing book, Paul Barber surveys centuries of folklore about vampires and offers the first scientific explanation for the origins of the vampire legends. From the tale of a sixteenth-century shoemaker from Breslau whose ghost terrorized everyone in the city, to the testimony of a doctor who presided over the exhumation and dissection of a graveyard full of Serbian vampires, his book is fascinating reading.

Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity by J. E. Lendon

What set the successful armies of Sparta, Macedon, and Rome apart from those they defeated? In this major new history of battle from the age of Homer through the decline of the Roman empire, J. E. Lendon surveys a millennium of warfare to discover how militaries change—and don’t change—and how an army’s greatness depends on its use of the past.

The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult by Clément Chéroux, Andreas Fischer, Pierre Apraxine, Denis Canguilhem, and Sophie Schmit

This fascinating book assembles more than 250 photographic images from the Victorian era to the 1960s, each purporting to document an occult phenomenon: levitations, apparitions, transfigurations, ectoplasms, spectres, ghosts, and auras. Drawn from the archives of European and American occult societies and private and public collections, the photographs in many cases have never before been published.

Ghost Ships: A Surrealist Love Triangle by Robert McNab

This book tells the story of a secret journey made by three significant figures in the Surrealist movement—the painter Max Ernst, Paul Eluard (cofounder of Surrealism), and Eluard’s wife Gala—exploring their ménage à trois and the impact of the trip on their work.

Whether you're hiding under the covers or hiding under the hardcovers, Yale University Press wishes you a Happy Halloween!

Ben Kiernan was interviewed by Lewis Lapham, former Harper's editor and now editor of Lapham's Quarterly. They discussed Kiernan's recently released Blood and Soil on Lapham's radio program "The World in Time," which aired this past Sunday, October 28. The interview is posted on Lewis Lapham's website at Lapham Quarterly, or can be heard here.

Ben Kiernan will also appear on Book TV later in November. If you missed Kiernan's recent discussion about his book at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts, or if you just want to hear him speak again, tune in on on Sunday, November 25, at 7:00 AM. For more information, click here.

Daniel Solove will be on KERA Dallas Public Radio's excellent hour-long program Think on November 5 at 1pm local time. Solove is the author of The Future of Reputation.This engrossing book explores the profound implications of personal information on the Internet, preserved forever even if it is false, biased, or humiliating. Brimming with examples of online gossip, slander, and rumor, the book discusses the tensions between privacy and free speech and proposes how to balance the two. What information about you is on the Internet?

Bernd Brunner will be appearing on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show on December 3. Brunner's Bears: A Brief History was released by Yale University Press earlier this month. Trita Parsi, author of Treacherous Alliance, was also guest on The Diane Rehm Show earlier this month to talk about his new book.

Brunner's engaging book examines the shared history of people and bears. Hopscotching through history, literature, and science, Bernd Brunner presents a delightfully illustrated compendium of information about different cultures’ attitudes toward bears, the central place of bears in our myths and dreams, how our images of bears do and do not mesh with reality, and more.

Episode 9 of the Yale Press Podcast is now available.

In Episode 9, Chris Gondek speaks with (1) Trita Parsi about his behind-the scenes revelations about events in the Middle East, and (2) James Prosek about his passion and devotion to capturing the beauty of fly fishing.

Download it for free here, on iTunes, and everywhere else that podcasts can be found.

Comments are welcome.

Janet Malcolm's recently published Two Lives has attracted a deluge of major media attention, including a nod from the New York Times Sunday Book Review. The Editor's Choice list praises Two Lives as "sharp criticism meets playful, absorbing biography." To see this week's complete list, click here.

The Wall Street Journal's John Gross also raves about Two Lives, calling it "shrewd, humane and beautifully written." He goes on to say that Malcolm's book is "woven together with a more general consideration of their lives and personalities -- a very acute one....She makes Stein's work seem more meaningful than most commentators do by bringing out its full psychological interest. And while she doesn't flinch from showing Stein at her worst, she reminds us of her good qualities too."

Read the entire Wall Street Journal review.

Christine Smallwood of Salon.com also reviewed the book recently, remarking that many "will find Janet Malcolm's Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice hard to put down." The book is part of Malcolm's "ongoing investigation into narrative," and it "powerfully demonstrates how [Stein's and Toklas'] images have been built and passed down to us....The biographer's game is a kind of treasure hunt, and Two Lives lays bare its rules."
Read the entire Salon.com review.

Malcolm will also be reading at the 92nd Street Y this coming Sunday, October 7th as part of the Brunch Series. Sign up for Yale Press Log's RSS feed to stay in touch with additional YUP author events and media appearances.

Read an excerpt of Two Lives.
View the table of contents.

Proving that (a) "I aten't dead" yet and (b) that I am reading Blogs still, I'm linking to the latest contest by Nancy at Journey Woman - High Culture Meets Popular Culture.

Here's what Nancy says:

Here is your mission, if you want to play:

Submit your comments here with examples of TV shows, popular songs, or movies that used references or quotes from famous poets or authors in a way that may have caught people by surprise. Caught by surprise? I mean, don't include the movie Sense and Sensibility, where half of it was quotes from poetry because two of the characters sat around and read each other poetry throughout. Don't include Shakespeare in Love or Hamlet, where of course there will be a lot of, um, Shakespeare.

Give me movies like Porky's II, or songs like Dire Straits "Romeo and Juliet." Better yet, give me quotes from The Simpsons. Any extra explanation you can include, similar to mine above about Porky's II, will gain you extra points.

You also get extra points for posting about this contest on your blog.

Deadline: October 12
Prizes: Good. I'll randomly draw 4 winners and I'll send them gift cards worth real money ($10 to 25).

Enjoyment factor: 10

Oh, and I'll create a post of all the submissions. Please include links to videos, or pictures, if you can, because that will make the post more fun.