3Vote!
Want to be a Free Thinker (Free subscription) | 12/04/2009
I'm going to a Christmas market in Germany later today. I will drink some gluwhein to toast you all, my dear readers, who have taught me so much. I criticize England a lot, I know, but I do love days like today where it's cold and sunny with a feeling of Christmas in the air. I enjoy being able to walk or take public transport anywhere I want to go, and there's a public life here -- you walk on streets...
5Vote!
Letters in Bottles (Free subscription) | 12/01/2009
This blog has, rightly I think, not yet made mention of the would-be-reality-TV-celebrities' crashing of the Obama dinner for Manmohan Singh, but today Anne Applebaum says something about it worth reading: Over the centuries, some societies have been more susceptible to these sorts of swindles than others. Catherine the Great's Russia, for example, was positively swarming with phony English duchesses...
10Vote!
The Huffington Post (Free subscription) | 12/01/2009
The House of Mirth is a dark and depressing Edith Wharton novel about a self-absorbed young woman obsessed with the goal of fitting into the...
3Vote!
A Boat Against the Current (Free subscription) | 11/30/2009
“The Government majority for their part appeared captivated by Mr. [Stanley] Baldwin's candour. His admission of having been utterly wrong, with all his sources of knowledge, upon a vital matter for which he was responsible was held to be redeemed by the frankness with which he declared his error and shouldered the blame. There was even a strange wave of enthusiasm for a Minister who did not...
4Vote!
Erik's Choice (Free subscription) | 11/27/2009
The closest thing to a romance novel I've read is probably work by Jane Austen and Edith Wharton, certainly nothing by Judith Krantz . Nonetheless, because of her friendship with Sue Kaufman, I plunged into her very interesting nonfiction work (probably her final book), Sex and Shopping: The Confessions of a Nice Jewish Girl -- An Autobiography (2000, 2001+). Krantz (b. 1/28/1928) covers a lot of ground,...
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AN AESTHETE'S LAMENT (Free subscription) | 11/26/2009
The dining room of La Leopolda in Villefranche-sur-Mer, France, as designed and furnished by its owner-architect, Ogden Codman, 1939. The scagiola walls imitate marble in three shades of red; ditto the cornice. On this day when we Americans gather around the nearest dining table and dig into turkey and dressing (or perhaps you call it stuffing, depending on your geographic location), I thought I would...
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Brit Lit Blogs (Free subscription) | 11/24/2009
The first of my lesser-known-to-me Willa Cather purchases whilst in Oxford and My Mortal Enemy is more of a novella set in what I would normally envisage as Whartonville not Catherland. This is New York society, as fifteen-year old Nellie Birdseye is invited to travel from Parthia, Illinois along with her Aunt Lydia to spend Christmas with Myra Henshawe in her Madison Square Garden, brownstone apartment....
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Free subscription) | 11/23/2009
So I finally went to go see New Moon last night despite how awful Twilight was and I've got to saw it was much better than its predecesor. While Bella still annoys me and Robert Patterson, though wonderful as Cedric Digory, is a somewhat hopeless and creepy Edward, the movie was pretty decent. The acting has improved all around. Dakoyta Fanning was pretty epic; I loved her eye makeup and Taylor as...
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book-a-rama (Free subscription) | 11/12/2009
I'm foreseeing a busy couple of months ahead with Christmas coming. I have several projects on the go, including making Christmas gifts. I also decided to spend a little more time on my sad Etsy shop and actually put some items in it. Then there's the concerts, parties, cleaning and baking that will need to be done. Last year, I caught a really bad flu and ended up in bed for a couple of weeks. I...
5Vote!
Farmboyz / Perge Modo (Free subscription) | 11/12/2009
Do you realize how heavily Jane Austen or Edith Wharton, if they were writing today, would lean on the "spam folder" as the declaration of love-thwarting romantic doom device that could cause generations of unhappy marriages, regret and erroneous avoidances. And what fun Shakespeare would have had with it. It could replace the sleeping potion in Romeo and Juliet. And, my God, Dickens! He'd...
6Vote!
Erik's Choice (Free subscription) | 11/08/2009
I. A book's title is at least as important as its cover. Certainly that's the case with Sue Kaufman and her legacy. Many many people have at least heard of her Diary of a Mad Housewife (1967). How many can say the same of one of her earlier novels, Green Holly (1961)? First, Green Holly is good, a take on New York society in the tradition of Edith Wharton and Henry James, updated to the 1950s. But...
6Vote!
Maud Newton (Free subscription) | 10/26/2009
“I applaud, I mean I value, I egg you on in, your study.” On this day in 1900, Henry James wrote his first letter to Edith Wharton.
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