AuthorElysium

I make books about books, and every year hundreds of people commission me to make custom art prints for them or their loved ones, of the spines of the books that changed their lives and made them who they are today. And as a result, I’ve read quite a lot of books—for people of all ages—and spent a lot of time researching which books people love most. Here’s what I’ve noticed: Even when an adult...

In the past five years a magazine from Dallas, Texas, has made a small but palpable stir in the world of literary journals, publishing stories, poems, and essays by some of the most exciting writers from several Latin American countries, including Ecuador, Mexico, Bolivia, and Colombia, in addition to some extraordinary voices from the United States. Southwest Review, for anyone paying attention...

When I was 25, I moved to the Netherlands from London.The reasons were two. I wanted to be with my Dutch partner, and I wanted to have a go at writing. Moving abroad, starting a new life with someone, leaving my jobin publishing, stepping into the void of a writing career: it was the kind of leap that you only take when youre young. But even if you muster the courage, theres still nobody to tell...

Shakespeare’s First Folio Table of Contents   Shakespeare’s First Folio — The Tempest (page 2)   Shakespeare’s First Folio — Romeo & Juliet __________________________________ Images © The British Library Board, excerpted with permission from Shakespeare’s First Folio: 400th Anniversary Facsimile Edition: Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies, Published According to...

When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg took her seat on the Supreme Court bench on August 10, 1993, she became the second female to serve on the country’s highest court, joining Justice Sandra Day O’Connor(nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1981). In the court’s group portrait from RBG’s first term, the nine justices, posed in front of red velvet curtains, wear flowing black judicial robes. The...

We’re supposed to think that Jackson Pollock invented drip painting, and with it the American branch of Abstract Expressionism. He did, didn’t he? So say Life and Time magazine and countless art history books and professors in dimly lit lecture halls, their brows tinted by the light from the projector, their words backed by the windy hum of its motor. The first drip, or all-around painting—made...