Founded in 1999, Operation Paperback collects gently used books and sends them to American troops deployed overseas. Many of our troops are serving far from home and living in facilities that provide few of the comforts of home. At the end of the duty day, the opportunity to escape into a good book is welcomed…. Continue reading »
Archives for Reading and Writing
Ode to Gioia
Too funny: WASHINGTON—The National Endowment for the Arts announced Monday that it has begun construction on a $1.3 billion, 14-line lyric poem—its largest investment in the nation’s aesthetic- industrial complex since the $850 million interpretive-dance budget of 1985. “America’s metaphors have become strained beyond recognition, our nation’s verses are severely overwrought, and if one merely… Continue reading »
Put Down the Marker and Back Away Slowly
Ever felt the impulse to whip out a red pen and go to town on a badly written menu or sign? Resist it. From the Arizona Republic: Two self-anointed “grammar vigilantes” who toured the nation removing typos from public signs have been banned from national parks after vandalizing a historic marker at the Grand Canyon…. Continue reading »
Lucky Girl
You’d never know it from my wardrobe, but I subscribe to Lucky, “the magazine about shopping and style.” (It used to just be “the magazine about shopping”–times were simpler then.) It’s not the articles that keep me hooked, much as I appreciate being given advice on topics like “613 Smart Buys” (SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN?… Continue reading »
The Book Bench
Even the New Yorker has a book blog now. But this one (“loose leafs from the New Yorker books department”) looks like it’s worth keeping an eye on. I’ve already seen more female bylines there than I do in most issues of the print mag.
