An Interview with John Huston

May 24, 2012

When John Huston was eight years old he wanted to be Indiana Jones, and minus the snakes and booby traps, he’s living that boyhood dream.  In 2009 – after years as an Outward Bound wilderness instructor and major expeditions to Greenland and Antarctica – the Evanston adventurer reached the pinnacle of polar exploration with a […]


Poetry on Call: "Dial-a-Poem" at MoMA NYC

May 22, 2012

Poetry fans who miss National Poetry Month (April) can indulge again now that the Museum of Modern Art in NYC has installed 4 telephones for visitors to call and hear a poet reading his/her poetry. There’s also an outside number in case getting to the museum is not in your plans. Dial 347-POET001 to hear […]


Interview with Mary Higgins Clark

May 22, 2012

The qualities that make her books so appealing can be seen in this delightful interview in the NY Times. Higgins Clark comes across as down to earth, “normal,” and as a woman with much life experience. Her most recent novel just came out recently. The Lost Years is a mystery in which one of the […]


This just in: reading makes you thin!

May 22, 2012

Okay, maybe not really. But check out this study which suggests that heavy reading is correlated with a lighter frame. According to Fred Pampel, a sociologist at the University of Colorado, ” interest in ideas, art, and knowledge…is associated as strongly as exercise with a lower body-mass index”. Pampel looked at survey data for people […]


Local Art @ EPL

May 17, 2012

We are happy to announce an exciting May treat for our ongoing exhibition series Local Art @ EPL.  Throughout this month, we’re proudly featuring Art Play with Poetry, a creative collaboration that showcases nine diverse artists from the Noyes Cultural Arts Center and their interpretations of twelve honored poems from the 2006-2011 Jo-Anne Hirshfield Memorial […]


Carlos Fuentes dies at 83; Mexican novelist

May 16, 2012

The Los Angeles Times wrote this stately obituary:   http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-carlos-fuentes-20120516,0,90903.story Author of more than 20 books, his best-known works include “The Old Gringo” (1985) and “The Death of Artemio Cruz” (1962). Fuentes also wrote the bestselling illustrated history “The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World” (1992) and essays dealing with innumerable aspects of Latin […]


"Modernist Cuisine" Wins Best Cookbook of the Year

May 10, 2012

Several weeks ago (Mar 21) I wrote about the James Beard Foundation nominations for outstanding cookbooks. Despite its huge size and hefty price (43 pounds and $625, or less on Amazon),  “Modernist Cuisine” took top honors this year. The main author, Nathan Myrhvold, is an impressive person for his intellectual abilities and sense of adventure. […]


Online dating: What would Jane Austen do?

May 8, 2012

In her recent article in USA Today, Elizabeth Kantor speculates on what Jane Austen would think about the popularity of today’s online dating services. Delving back a few hundred years to the social conventions of the day, Kantor finds that Austen’s use of the highly popular “assembly ball” as a device for young people such […]


Maurice Sendak, 1928-2012

May 8, 2012

Maurice Sendak, widely considered by many to be the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, died Tuesday  at the age of 83.  He wrote and illustrated more than a dozen picture books, and is most well known for Where the Wild Thing Are  which won the Caldecott Medal in 1964.  Other favorites include […]


Prequel to The Godfather and Trailer, "The Family Corleone"

May 7, 2012

Compared to the actual book, the trailer for The Family Corleone is quite lighthearted. The first chapter of the novel has just been released on PW and is anything but humorous, reflecting the grim code of the Mafia. Ed Falco sets his work in 1933 when Vito Corleone is hoping his children will succeed in […]


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