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This week, Oxford University Press (OUP) and The Reader announced an exciting new partnership, working together to build a core classics library and to get great literature into the hands of people who need it most, with the Oxford World’s Classics series becoming The Reader’s "house brand" for use in their pioneering Shared Reading initiatives.

The post What do the classics do for you? appeared first on OUPblog.

In the 1950s and 60s a cross-section of psychologists, writers and artists in America, partly inspired by Aldous Huxley’s essay The Doors of Perception published in 1954, experimented with hallucinogenics like LSD, mescaline, mushrooms, and hashish to venture into new realms of experience, seeking the “hidden” reality of the self and the world and probing into the meaning of art to locate their inner vision.

The post How A. K. Ramanujan mirrored Aldous Huxley appeared first on OUPblog.

In the 1950s and 60s a cross-section of psychologists, writers and artists in America, partly inspired by Aldous Huxley’s essay The Doors of Perception published in 1954, experimented with hallucinogenics like LSD, mescaline, mushrooms, and hashish to venture into new realms of experience, seeking the “hidden” reality of the self and the world and probing into the meaning of art to locate their inner vision.

The post How A. K. Ramanujan mirrored Aldous Huxley appeared first on OUPblog.

Imagine a Hollywood film about the Iraq War in which a scene at a clandestine Al-Qaeda compound featuring a cabal of insurgents abruptly cuts to a truck-stop off the New Jersey Turnpike. A group of disgruntled truckers huddle around their rigs cursing the price of gas. An uncannily similar coup de thèâtre occurs in an overlooked episode in 1 Henry IV.

The post What would Shakespeare drive? appeared first on OUPblog.

At the height of his career - during the time he was writing Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend - Dickens wrote a series of sketches, mostly set in London, which he collected as The Uncommercial Traveller. The persona of the 'Uncommercial' allowed Dickens to unify his series of occasional articles by linking them through a shared narrator.

The post Dickens’ fascination with London [map] appeared first on OUPblog.

When some one says to you "that's just a fairy tale," it generally means that what you have just said is untrue or unreal. It is a polite but deprecating way of saying that your words form a lie or gossip. Your story is make-believe and unreliable. It has nothing to do with reality and experience. Fairy tale is thus turned into some kind of trivial story.

The post A fairy tale is more than just a fairy tale appeared first on OUPblog.

Some reviewers of the first episodes of the current BBC1 adaptation have dismissed it is over-blown fantasy, even childish, yet Clarke’s characters are only once removed from the very real magical world of early nineteenth-century England. What few readers or viewers realise is that there were magicians similar to Strange and Norrell at the time: there really were 'Friends of English Magic', to whom the novel’s Mr Segundus appealed in a letter to The Times.

The post The real world of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell appeared first on OUPblog.

In order to celebrate the launch of The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature in March, we invited OUP staff to dress up as their favourite characters from children’s books. The result was one surreal day during which our Oxford offices were overrun with children’s literature characters, ranging from the Cat in the Hat to Aslan, from Pippi Longstocking to the Tiger Who Came to Tea, and from Little Red Riding Hood to the Very Hungry Caterpillar. It was a brilliant and brave effort by all those who attended. Particularly those who commuted to and from work in their costumes!

The post Who is your favourite character from children’s literature? appeared first on OUPblog.

On 27th October 1914 Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea, South Wales. He is widely regarded as one the most significant Welsh writers of the 20th century.Thomas’s popular reputation has continued to grow after his death on 9th November, 1953, despite some critics describing his work as too ‘florid‘. He wrote prolifically throughout his lifetime but is arguably best known for his poetry. His poem The hand that signed the paper is taken from Jon Stallworthy’s edited collection The Oxford Book of War Poetry, and can be found below:

DYLAN THOMAS

1914–1953

The hand that signed the paper

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;

Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,

Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;

These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,

The finger joints are cramped with chalk;

A goose’s quill has put an end to murder

That put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,

And famine grew, and locusts came;

Great is the hand that holds dominion over

Man by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not soften

The crusted wound nor stroke the brow;

A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;

Hands have no tears to flow.

                                                                                            1936

The post The 100th anniversary of Dylan Thomas’s birth appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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The final, quiet days of summer before the turning of the season and the chill of back-to-work autumn are a perfect time to slow down, turn off the electronics, and refresh the soul by reading poetry. On the other hand, what could be more fun than an internet quiz about cats?

We sat down with Oxford Scholarly Editions Online, and fired up the search, looking for cats stalking the pages of literature. We found some lovely stuff, and something more – a literary reflection of the cat’s unstoppable gambol up the social ladder: a mouser and rat-catcher in the seventeenth century, he springs up the stairs in the eighteenth century to become the plaything of smart young ladies and companion of literary lions such as Cowper, Dr Johnson, and Horace Walpole.

Image credit: Cat with OSEO, © Oxford University Press. Do not re-use without permission.

The post Whose muse mews? appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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Exploring themes of crime, justice, and revenge, Erdrich spins a tale of the brutal rape of a Native American woman who lives on a reservation in North Dakota. When 13-year-old Joe's mother is raped and very nearly murdered, he watches as his family disintegrates into something completely foreign. Because his mother doesn't know exactly where she was [...]

Based on the true story of an emancipated slave who risked her life to spy on the Confederacy for the Union during the Civil War, this book is a must-read. Written with grace and passion, fantastic historical detail and fully realized characters, The Secrets of Mary Bowser is immensely enjoyable. I'd also recommend it for [...]

Okay, I know I’m rather delayed in posting about this… but at least I did get around to it!

This year I headed off to Chicago, IL again to attended my 2nd year at the Printers Row Lit Fest. Last year I had a blast, met a lot of wonderful people and sold a bunch of books. This year didn’t disappoint either!

Let’s start at the beginning.

I flew into O’Hare Thursday evening (June 7th). Last year was great, but I didn’t get to see any of Chicago and was determined to fix that this year! My sweetie Sean Hayden was kind enough to pick me up (for those who didn’t know, we met for the first time at PR last year!)

Chicago!

We found our hotel, which I found using Expedia and got for an awesome 32$ a night. It was the Extended Stay American Chicago in Hillside. Considering the price, I was beyond relieved to find out it was not only easy to get to, but in excellent condition. Though not at all fancy (and no maid service though you could exchange sheets and towels at the front desk) it was VERY clean, the room was huge with a full kitchenette and everything worked. I would certainly stay there again.

On Friday we toured Chicago a bit, and visited the most awesome Navy Pier. It was a hot day, but we had a load of fun watching the boats, touring the shops and eating funnel cakes!  We had dinner at the famous Bubba Gumps. Which was pretty neat, though I found my memories of the details in the movie Forrest Gump weren’t so great.

Saturday was the big first day of Printers Row! Which meant getting up at like 5am to have everything ready and loaded. Luckily traffic was awesome and we got to the site early and were able to drive in to unload. Everyone else started arriving and it was a flurry of hellos and set up. The weather was hot but otherwise fantastic. The crowd didn’t seem to be as big as last year, but they were buying! A lot of people stopped to chat, browse (and buy) books and get autographs. Luckily we had a cooler full of ice to keep us from melting in the heat. By 6pm we were closing up (and btw, yes that is a verrrrry long day) and packing our stuff into the center of the tent. We all had dinner across the street where we ate and chatted for a few hours and then I think we all went back to hotels for some sleep.

Sunday we were there early again, set everything up again, and kept on selling! Flashy Fiction and Other Insane Tales did absolutely fantastic! (Of course it does have a really cool cover Add a Comment

heyoscarwilde:

Bradbury.

Artwork by Lou Romano :: via louromano.blogspot.com

RIP Mr Bradbury

I buy books en masse each year for Christmas, and this year was no different. And because no one for whom I buy my books actually reads this blog, I feel safe in divulging some of my now-wrapped presents.

Here we go:

For a certain dancer with a talent in the kitchen: Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source. For a southern California writer: Lit: A Memoir. For a nephew who isn't just an extraordinary swimmer, but also one heck of a fisherman, the gorgeously illustrated FISH: 77 Great Fish of North America. For a niece who is off to college in a year or so, pursuing her passion in science (and likely physics): The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. For my dad, a former chief executive and still active consultant who yesterday brought me the loveliest planted gift (but more on that later): Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World. For my artist husband now working in new media: ZBrush Character Creation, Mastering Maya, and Ghostly Ruins. For my son, firmly ensconced in the advertising world: Read Me: A Century of Classic American Book Advertisements and Creative Advertising.

Finally, should my schedule afford me reading time, I've got Nothing to be Frightened of (Julian Barnes), Half Broke Horses (Jeannette Walls), The Piano Teacher (Janice Y.K. Lee), Something Must Happen (Ned Balbo), Eiffel's Tower (Jill Jonnes), The Perfect Square (Nancy M. Heinzen), and my own great-grandfather's Smoky Mountain Magic (Horace Kephart) stacked up near.

I've titled this post "Lit: A Review," but on this blog, I don't write reviews; I save that voice for the Chicago Tribune. Here I write about a book's impact, about where I was and how I felt when I read it.

I read Lit while lying on the slender black couch where I spend most sleepless nights. I read it pulled up under the blue blanket that snuffs the perpetual winter chill. I read it in three sittings and would have been happy with just one, but life (my life) got in the way. I heard voices in my head: This is an artist working. This is a woman resurrected. This is a mother who genuinely loves. This is a poet-teacher who, within the pages of Lit, is teaching us how a book like this gets made. There are so many extraordinarily fine sentences in Lit. There are fragments torn from Heather McHugh, Terrence Hayes, and Don DiLillo; words of advice from Tobias Wolf; stories about good-hearted addicts; revelations of a gorgeous sisterhood. There is a lot of soul searching, a lot of desperate need, no small share of triumph, and—this is, perhaps, the biggest thing—no accusatory fingers pointed. Mary Karr has lived one hell of a life. There would be blame enough to go around, but no one gets blamed in Lit, which is to say that no one emerges as caricature.

Last Monday, in Room 209 of the Kelly Writers House, J.—in endless pursuit of a deeper knowing—asked if I'd heard the Mary Karr interview, if I'd read any of the book's excerpts on-line. I said that when I got home that day, Lit would be waiting for me on the doorstep. J.—no romantic—actually sighed. "You're so lucky," he said, and J., I am. But we're all lucky, as a matter of fact, that books like these get written.

I said I wanted to read a good book, a very good book. I picked up Lit, by Mary Karr. I picked up Lit, and suddenly I wanted my son to have a copy, my students, my friends. In the middle of all my reading and wanting, my friend Kate Moses called, and I said, Lit. Lit. Lit., and she said, Did you get to the part about the wedding yet? and I said, I don't want this book to end. Sometimes I think I've fallen out of love with books. And then comes Lit, and I'm impassioned once again.

This evening I chased the moon, a fine, swollen creature.

Earlier in the day I read Kathryn Stockett's The Help, which I wanted to like so much more than I did. I am addicted to nuance and to language as a reader; that is all I will say. Later on in the day, reading the opening chapters of Mary Karr's Lit, I felt my readerly self settling in.

Then came the moon.