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New Medieval Literature Imprint


I am a big fan of the Loeb Classical Library with their distinctive red and green volumes (red for Latin works and green for Greek). Now they HUP is putting out a new imprint focusing on the works of medieval Europe.

Books like the Latin (and most will probably be in Latin or Old English, one suspects) bible translated by Saint Jerome, the Benedictine Rule, plus far more earthy works, will be published under the imprint of the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library.

Even better, the physical presence of Dumbarton Oaks is right here in Washington, DC.

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Happy Birthday, Edwin Abbot


My senior year of high school, back in Dunedin, Florida, I took a series of dual enrollment courses for college credit. The same professor taught all of them.

I wish I could remember his name, because he was the man who introduced me to Edwin Abbot’s mathematical/philosophical classic, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. And Edwin Abbot was born on this day in 1838.

If you haven’t read Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, well, there’s no good reason why not. It’s short. It’s an easy read. And it’s a wonderfully inventive and enjoyable way to explore epistemic and spatial concepts (the book is about two dimensional beings, their inability to truly understand  three dimensionality, and about resistance to new concepts).

 

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This Would Be A Great Way To Stimulate The Economy


Invest in ‘Limitless Libraries.’ Help the economy. Improve cultural literacy and promote long term reading habits.

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‘Where Is Our Culture Heading?’


That was the question Warren Adler asked in this piece.

Leaving aside his pompously self-conscious and clearly deliberate, “old-fashioned fuddy duddy” voice, does he have a point?

I know that before a million channels of television, internet at home (can you believe that I used to only use it at work or in the university computer lab?), I read a lot more. Is there something to his concerns? It’s something I have wondered about before.

Of course, it is very, very hard to get beyond Adler’s irritating style and attitude, so I won’t blame you if your conclusion is ‘no, because that guy is just an a–.’

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E-Readers Not Ready for College


The University of Washington attempted an experiment to measure the relative utility of e-readers in a collegiate environment.

The result? Paper books still reign supreme.