Ernest Hemingway Archives - Evanston Public Library

Janine Macris’s Best Reads of 2016

December 29, 2016

My name is Janine Macris, and I have lived in Evanston for a very long time. I appreciate its love of trees and the arts and its community, and I have spent many hours at the Evanston Public Library, even before I could read. I teach children, including my own, through my love of the power of words, and my husband builds me furniture and I love it. We read every night and it’s a great gift.

1) The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926)

It took me years to finally make it beyond a few chapters in this book. I had never been able to get past my college life’s raw imagining of the Running of the Bulls, but once my professor helped frame this feminist reflection of a woman traveling along and craving companionship with a friend filled with the same strain, I re-sought existentialism as a crisis amid hope. It was through this read that I saw Hemingway’s infamous short-and-sweet style being as transient as his characters’ lives. I finally understood his talent for code-switching symbolic gestures in a rebellion to be free. From there Hemingway’s door opened for me, and I felt accomplished and proud to get to the root of time’s angular woven ways.

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New Edition of Hemingway Novel

July 15, 2014

Scribner will be releasing a new edition of Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises in late July. The classic book begins with the line “Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton.” But the original opening began: “This is a novel about a lady.” The new edition with the discarded first chapter and alternate drafts and titles also includes Hemingway’s 1923 essay of his first visit to the running of the bulls festival in Pamplona, Spain. For more about the reissuing of this classic, see the NYT article. And check out the EPL catalog for Hemingway’s other works.

Laura

Lost Hemingway Story To Be Published

September 18, 2013

Ernest Hemingway’s satiric short story “My Life in the Bull Ring with Donald Ogden Stewart”, rejected by Vanity Fair in 1924, was discovered among Donald Ogden Stewart’s letters and will be published in the October issue of Harper’s. Although based on a real incident when Ogden Stewart was in a bull fight in Spain, the writer wasn’t impressed with the story, writing in his autobiography about Hemingway: “I had decided that written humor was not his dish.” When Vanity Fair requested permission to reprint it was rejected by Hemingway’s estate. Hemingway’s son Patrick told the Independent: “I’m not a great fan of Vanity Fair. It’s a sort of luxury thinker’s magazine, for people who get their satisfaction out of driving a Jaguar instead of a Mini.” Read more here.

Laura

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

July 14, 2012

Waiting for the King

Writer Dave Eggers talks about his new novel A Hologram for the King with the NY Times. Along with discussing his differing approaches to fiction and nonfiction, the Zeitoun author explores how Waiting for Godot, Willy Loman, and a visit to Saudi Arabia subtly influenced the book.

Superheroes for the Silver Screen

The Onion presents 21 comic book super teams perfect for the movies. Inspired by The Avengers’ blockbuster and this weekend’s Comic-Con, they lobby for bringing Alpha Flight, Doom Patrol, the Champions, the Thunderbolts, Seven Soldiers, and the Zoo Crew to Hollywood.

The Importance of Being Orwell

George Orwell’s diaries are dissected by the late Christopher Hitchens in this fascinating Vanity Fair feature. Due out next month, the 1984 author’s personal writings shed light on how his years in Morocco and Spain in the 1930’s and ’40’s greatly influenced his political convictions.

Thank You for Being a Friend

Learn the art of bromance with this look at 11 great literary friendships. Through inspiring highs and jealous lows, peek inside the complex relationships between Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, C.S Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien, and Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.