Reading in Prison
1. At one-hour intervals the night guards paced past every room. Each time I heard the approaching footsteps, I jumped into bed and feigned sleep. And as soon as the guard passed, I got back…
Category: Reading
Readerwriters
During this active seedtime, Emerson was also reading in all directions. He read systematically only for a particular project. He read current books and old books…And from almost everything he read he culled phrases, details,…
This Week’s Reading
Lahiri, Mandelstam, Weil
Readers
Idleness is a disease which must be combated; but I would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of study. I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together. A…
Meanwhile, Elsewhere in the World/529…
At this very minute, in other corners of Mexico and the world, a man, a woman, an other, a little girl, a little boy, an elderly man, an elderly woman, a memory, is beaten cruelly…
An Anti-Defamation League unto Himself
I’ve read half of Philip Roth’s books, a few more than once. Recently I returned to the novel Operation Shylock and was struck by this testimonial outburst of one of the characters— “‘Grant me that…
What Sarah’s Been Reading with Gusto
I emailed Saran McNeal, and wrote: “Tell me something you’ve been reading lately that jazzes you up! Here’s how she responded… Hi Mark, Good to hear from you. Sorry for being so quiet these last weeks….
The Good News of Translation
1. Thanks to __________, I Was Able to Read_______’s _________ [Language] Richard Fein, Yankev Glatshteyn, Selected Poems [Yiddish] Hillel Halkin, Sholem Aleichem, Tevye the Dairyman [Yiddish] Nili Wachtel, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Meshugah [Yiddish] Martha…
Dirda in Threes
RULE TWO: General duties of a student — pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students. —Sister Corita Kent Michael Dirda, Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments Indiana University Press, 2000…
The Reading Life/1
The Chasm between Them and Us Kadya Molodovsky, A Jewish Refugee in New York: Rivke Zilberg’s JournalTranslated by Anita Norich The accomplished Yiddish writer Molodovsky wrote this novel in serialized form in 1940-41, knowing obviously…