A Lesson for Yom Kippur
The Cottage of Candles
A lesson for Yom Kippur from The Tree of Souls.
September 2006
Hank Greenberg and Yom Kippur
A poem is excerpted from the book Jews in America by Hasia R. Diner. It recounts the tale of Hank Greenberg, a baseball legend, who put his religion before baseball when he went to synagogue instead of playing the Yankees in 1934.
Excerpt from The New Faces of Christianity
An excerpt from Philip Jenkins new book, The New Faces of Christianity.
September gleanings: macabre, gully & gulch
Some time ago I received a question about the word macabre. This adjective first appeared in Old French, in the phrase dancemacabre. The story begins with the fresco of the Dance Macabre, painted in 1424 in the Church of Innocents at Paris. The English poet and monk John Lydgate knew the fresco.
A Few Questions for Rosanna Hertz
OUP author Rosanna Hertz answers some questions about her new book, Single By Chance, Mothers By Choice.
Santa Cruz
Ben’s Place of the Week
Ben’s Place of the week is Santa Cruz, California.
Inside Man: Revival of the Heist Movie?
OUP author Nicole Rafter weighs in on The Inside Man and heist films in general.
Women in Literature: Gwendolyn Brooks
A profile of Gwendolyn Brooks.
The Constitution: A Debate
Geoffrey Stone kicks off a debate with Judge Richard Posner.
Ramadan
Ramadan begins tomorrow and will last for a month. For an explanation of the holiday we turn to John Esposito’s What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam.
Rosh Hashana
A celebration of Rosh Hashana.
Golfing Greats from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
History from the DNB for Ryder Cup weekend.
Women and Literature:
In this article from Black Women in America, Second Edition, Jacquelyn Y. McLendon profiles the new generation of fiction writers.
Happy Birthday Upton Sinclair!
OUP wishes Upton Sinclair a happy birhtday.
The Tongue Between the Teeth,
Or, The Oddest English Spellings (Part 4)
By Anatoly Liberman It is easy to get used to certain conventions. No characters exist for the initial consonants of the English words shin, chin, and thin, and at an early age we learn that two letters are needed to render them in spelling. In Part 3 of the series “The Oddest English Spellings,” I compared shelf, […]
Surtsey, Iceland
Ben’s Place of the Week
Ben’s place of the week is Surtsey, Iceland.