It's only Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday in November), but lists of best books of the year are already appearing, presumably as timely suggestions for Christmas gifts. This is where I collect them.
*New York Times Book Review: 100 notable books (here) and 10 best books (here)
*Publishers Weekly: here
*Amazon.com: here
*Salon.com: here
*Time: here
*Goodreads: here
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Delhi scams, Indian scams against tourists: Indian creativity at its "best"
Monday, June 20, 2011
Kolkata's College Street Book Market (Video)
Form Al Jazeera comes a wonderful video on the College Street book market of Kolkata, a place I briefly visited in December 2008. From the film maker:
College Street in Kolkata is the throbbing home of a maze of old book shops and stalls and this traditional place of learning and trading hosts the largest non-trading book fair in the world every year. But encroaching globalisation, in the form of a modern and fancy book mall being built opposite, casts a shadow over this traditional and treasured place. Is it a threat or an opportunity for the traditional book traders? While India embraces globalisation, what does it mean for ordinary people and the intellectual traditions of this city?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
George Steiner: a video interview with Alan Macfarlane
I first read (parts of) George Steiner's (born April 23, 1929, Wikipedia) After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (1975, Wikipedia) in 1980. (I probably first heard of him a few years earlier.)
Finally, thirty one years later (in 2011), I got to see him in this excellent two-hour interview (below), conducted on July 16, 2007 by the renowned Cambridge social anthropologist Alan Macfarlane ((born 20 December 1941, Wikipedia).
Alan Macfarlane has a wondeful video library, a treasure trove, that is well worth exporing (Youtube and here).
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(from Wikipedia)
Francis George Steiner, FBA (born April 23, 1929), is an influential European-born American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, translator, and educator. He has written extensively about the relationship between language, literature and society, and the impact of the Holocaust. Some consider him both a polyglot and a polymath; he is sometimes said to have redefined the role of the critic.
Among his admirers, Steiner is ranked "among the great minds in today's literary world." English novelist A. S. Byatt described him as a "late, late, late Renaissance man ... a European metaphysician with an instinct for the driving ideas of our time." Harriet Harvey-Wood, a former literature director of the British Council, saw him as a "magnificent lecturer – prophetic and doom-laden [who would] turn up with half a page of scribbled notes, and never refer to them."
Steiner was Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Geneva (1974–1994), Professor of Comparative Literature and Fellow at the University of Oxford (1994–1995) and Professor of Poetry at Harvard University (2001–2002).
He lives in Cambridge, England, where he has been Extraordinary Fellow at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge since 1969.
Finally, thirty one years later (in 2011), I got to see him in this excellent two-hour interview (below), conducted on July 16, 2007 by the renowned Cambridge social anthropologist Alan Macfarlane ((born 20 December 1941, Wikipedia).
Alan Macfarlane has a wondeful video library, a treasure trove, that is well worth exporing (Youtube and here).
****************************
(from Wikipedia)
Francis George Steiner, FBA (born April 23, 1929), is an influential European-born American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, translator, and educator. He has written extensively about the relationship between language, literature and society, and the impact of the Holocaust. Some consider him both a polyglot and a polymath; he is sometimes said to have redefined the role of the critic.
Among his admirers, Steiner is ranked "among the great minds in today's literary world." English novelist A. S. Byatt described him as a "late, late, late Renaissance man ... a European metaphysician with an instinct for the driving ideas of our time." Harriet Harvey-Wood, a former literature director of the British Council, saw him as a "magnificent lecturer – prophetic and doom-laden [who would] turn up with half a page of scribbled notes, and never refer to them."
Steiner was Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Geneva (1974–1994), Professor of Comparative Literature and Fellow at the University of Oxford (1994–1995) and Professor of Poetry at Harvard University (2001–2002).
He lives in Cambridge, England, where he has been Extraordinary Fellow at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge since 1969.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
May morning in Oxford (Video)
May Morning is an annual event in Oxford, England, on May Day (1 May). It starts early at 6am with the Magdalen College Choir singing a hymn, the Hymnus Eucharisticus, from the top of Magdalen Tower, a tradition of over 500 years. Large crowds normally gather under the tower along the High Street and on Magdalen Bridge. This is then followed by general revelry and festivities including Morris dancing, impromptu music, etc., for a couple of hours. There is a party atmosphere, despite the early hour. In fact, there are normally all-night balls the night before, so some people (especially students) are in formal attire (e.g., black tie/white tie or ball gown). (source: Wikipedia)
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