‘Just Can’t Wait to Get on the Road Again’: Book Distribution in the U.S., Part 3

April 30, 2014 · by JS Epstein | in Brick & Mortar Bookstores, The Story of Books | tagged airplane books, Amazon, Baker & Taylor, book distribution, book wholesalers vs. retailers, development of the American Magazine, e-books, Elliott Bay Book Company, Industrial Age, Ingrams, railroad literature, Rick Simonson, serialized novels | Leave a comment

As chronicled in my previous two posts (see January 15 and March 12 of this year), the book business has transitioned a great deal since the horseback peddler days of Parson Mason Weems. And yet, in some ways, the book trade is dealing with the same problems that have plagued it since its inception. The […]

Exercising with E. E. Cummings

April 23, 2014 · by Janet Weeks | in Poets/ Poetry/ Performances, The Necessity of Reading | tagged avant-garde poetry, capitalization and lower case, E. E. Cummings, exercise for ageing, experimental poetry, free verse, journaling, lyric poetry, mental exercise, National Poetry Month, orthography, poems as visual objects, sonnet | 10 Comments

Since retiring in 2003, I have been fighting getting old. Although I was once an English teacher, I was determined to reinvent myself at age fifty-four. I took drawing, pottery, and watercolor classes at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center in DeKalb County. I joined the East Lake YMCA for tai chi and yoga classes. My “exercises,” […]

A Brief History of the Novel – Part Four

April 16, 2014 · by Eve Shulmister | in The Story of Books | tagged A Visit from the Goon Squad, Carl Jung and man's collective wisdom, Dr. Fritz Perls, Eugene Ionesco, Gestalt Therapy, Jennifer Egan, Kate Atkinson, Kurt Vonnegut, Life After Life, Magical Realism, Margaret Atwood, Metafiction, myth and 21st century literature, Pastiche, Postmodernsim, Tea Obreht, Technoculture and confusion, The Absurd, The Handmaid's Tale, The Name of the Rose, The Tiger's Wife, Tristram Shandy, Umberto Eco | 6 Comments

Change. Change. Change. Change … change. Change. Chaaange. When you say words a lot they don’t mean anything. Or maybe they don’t mean anything anyway, and we just think they do. ― Neil Gaiman Late Twentieth Century (1950-2000) – Postmodern In the first three parts of this series I offered a working definition of the novel […]

Frost in Springtime

April 9, 2014 · by Christina Kaylor | in Field Trips, Poets/ Poetry/ Performances | tagged "Peril of Hope", Agnes Scott College, Catherine Marshall, Dr. Wallace Alston, Edna Hanley Byers, Emma May Laney, Frost Collection McCain Library, George W. Lundeen, literary collections and university libraries, Margaret Pepperdene, Robert Frost, Robert Frost at Agnes Scott College | 4 Comments

T. S. Eliot may have felt that “April is the cruellest Month,” but not in lovely Decatur, Georgia, where Spring has at long last arrived. It’s short-sleeve weather full of sunny days and blooming trees. We are bound today for Agnes Scott College’s McCain Library to view the Robert Frost Collection, a fitting pilgrimage for National […]

Early Native American Writers

April 3, 2014 · by Brenda Lloyd | in The Story of Books | tagged American history from Indian perspective, Black Hawk, Broken treaties with Indian tribes, Charles Eastman, Cherokee Syllabary, Christian missionaries vs. Native American religious beliefs, Early Native American Writers, Elias Boudinott, Forced removal of Indian tribes, Indian Removal Act, S. Alice Callahan, Sarah Winnemucca, The Battle of Wounded Knee, The Cherokee Phoenix, The Five Civilized Tribes, The Many Tribes of the North American Indian, The Trail of Tears, William Apess | 3 Comments

Others of your accursed race have, in years past, poisoned our peaceful shores. They have taught me what you are . . . I am king in my own land, and will never become the vassal of a mortal like myself. Vile and pusillanimous is he who submits to the yoke of another when […]