Carnivorous Nights

'A BEASTLY HAIKU CONTEST'
Write a haiku, e-mail it to us, and you could win a signed copy of Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger (plus a copy of the book for your favorite library!) and more cool prizes.

America's Favourite Poem

Renowned poetry anthologist David Lehman has selected 10 poems from The Oxford Book of American Poetry that he feels represent the most popular American poems ever written. We'd like you to vote on which of these poems is the most loved, is it Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven,Emma Lazarus's The New Colossus, or perhaps you prefer something a bit more contemporary? Cast your vote today! The poem that wins the distinction of being America's Favorite Poem will be announced on May 1st.

Very much ado about Shakespeare

"Shakespeare's birthday was observed Sunday in the traditional manner: by newspaper reports claiming that schoolchildren are no longer familiar with his work.
Yet, whether or not they are aware of it, English-speakers can barely open their mouths without acknowledging their greatest writer.
If, on seeing one of his texts, these pupils proclaim, 'it's Greek to me,' they are quoting Shakespeare.
If, the night before their exams, they can't sleep a wink, they are quoting Shakespeare.
If their teeth are on edge, if they are in a pickle, if they are sick at heart, then, truth be told, they are quoting Shakespeare.
If they wait with bated breath, act more in sorrow than in anger, play fast and loose or are more sinned against than sinning; if they say 'too much of a good thing,' 'what's done is done,' 'good riddance,' 'one fell swoop' or 'love is blind'; if they stand on ceremony, offer short shrift (or cold comfort) to their flesh and blood (or to strange bedfellows), then the long and the short of it is that they are quoting Shakespeare.
If they wear their heart on their sleeve, if they see something vanish into thin air, if they suspect foul play, if the world is their oyster, then, to be frank, they are quoting Shakespeare."

Smoking Dope with Thomas Pynchon

Smoking Dope with Thomas Pynchon: A Sixties Memoir.
Via Woods Lot

This Day in History

According to tradition, the great English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare is born in Stratford-on-Avon on April 23, 1564. It is impossible to be certain the exact day on which he was born, but church records show that he was baptized on April 26, and three days was a customary amount of time to wait before baptizing a newborn. Shakespeare's date of death is conclusively known, however: it was April 23, 1616. He was 52 years old and had retired to Stratford three years before.

This Day in History

April 19, 1824
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, dies in what is now Greece, where he had traveled to support the Greek struggle for independence from Turkey. Even today, he is considered a Greek national hero.

Fibonacci Poems Multiply on the Web

"Blogs
spread
gossip
and rumor
But how about a
Rare, geeky form of poetry? "

Author Muriel Spark dies aged 88

Novelist Dame Muriel Spark, who wrote the classic The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, has died in Tuscany where she had made her home."

Wry Sedaris 'grinds and grinds'

There's something delicious in chatting with Sedaris, a conversation that falls somewhere between confession and True Confessions. Part of it is self-deprecating and disarming. Other times it's just naughty, nasty or weird.
'I usually tour every spring and fall,' says Sedaris, 'but last year I took the fall off and my boyfriend (painter Hugh Hamrick) had to pay the price for that because when autumn came, I went around saying, 'Look at me! Pay attention to me! Look at what I did. Look, I parted my hair in the middle! Look, I ironed a shirt! Didn't I iron it good?' It made me realize how I needed that (public) attention just to keep me normal at home.

A tale of two genders: men choose novels of alienation, while women go for passion

The novel that means most to men is about indifference, alienation and lack of emotional responses. That which means most to women is about deeply held feelings, a struggle to overcome circumstances and passion, research by the University of London has found.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Christopher is 15 years old and autistic. When he discovers the poodle across the street dead, stabbed with a pitchfork, he decides to solve the mystery and write a book about it. The author, Mark Haddon, speaks in Christopher's voice and helps us to understand the confusing, sometimes terrifying world of autism. We see Christopher struggle to organize all the stimuli coming at him, mostly by doing math in his head (he's a savant). Circumstances force him to make some difficult choices that thrust him into the larger world, alone and afraid and he accomplishes more than he ever thought he could. His parents love him but they have their own limitations and it's not easy parenting Christopher - my heart went out to them. The book is sad and funny and offbeat and hopeful and, yes, he does solve the mystery. I gobbled it up in no time and was sorry to be finished it although it ended on an upbeat note.

Picasso's Weeping Woman: The Life and Art of Dora Maar

I read this in anticipation of my visit to the Picasso Museum in Paris , one of my favourites, which is staging a Picasso and Dora Maar exhibition. This is a big book with lots of pictures and the list price is $72.00, although I paid considerably less ($4.00) at the Book Depot. Not enough depth to be a good biography but interesting nonetheless. Dora was a very good artist in her own right with impeccable credentials within the Surrealist movement as a photographer and a painter. She was an ardent socialist and had, by all accounts, a sharp intellect. She was treated badly by Picasso but it's likely that she gave as good as she got. She spent her later years as a recluse in the south of France. Having seen some of the art and its background I can hardly wait to see the show in Paris.

The Little Prince turns 60

THE tale of The Little Prince enjoys its 60th birthday this month and the book's popularity looks set to continue for many more years.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery's beautiful story of the adventures of a young prince, who travels around the Universe and the characters he meets, was published in April 1946.
Since then it has sold more than 80 million copies and been translated into around 160 languages, recently being published in Slovak.
To mark the anniversary of the book's publication the author's literary estate has set up a website with news on planned musical events and special editions.
The life of author Antoine de Saint-Exupery was equally fantastic as he was a pioneering pilot who flew the early postal routes to Africa and mystery still surrounds his death.
He was shot down on a reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean during the Second World War and divers claim to have discovered the wreckage in 2004 (see Has hero's plane been found?).
So he never saw The Little Prince in print and it would have been interesting to have seen his reaction to the massive success of the book, as he was a quiet, philosophical man."

Blind Night

I saw this book sitting in a remainder pile at Coles and had to have it. Strube's observations of modern life are keen and wry and deeply disturbing - family violence and dysfunction with a twist. It's that twist that makes her novels bearable. Blind Night begins with a conflagration when a truck veers into a house leaving its occupants, single ex-drug addict mum, McKenna, and her eight year old daughter, Logan, homeless. McKenna is rendered colour-blind from the concussion she receives and has to learn to live in a shadowy world, in more ways than one. They are forced into a seedy motel with a motley crew of disenfranchized characters because it is the only place that will accept their narcoleptic dog, Stanley. It's a dark, dark beginning and it gets worse. Played out against a backdrop of Logan's apocalyptic view of humanity we are exposed to urban life and its denizens at their gritty, powerless worst. Strube creates a world where people can survive but not without a terrible struggle. Don't worry though, there is an undercurrent of hope and the worst ones get what's coming to them.

Books Born Of Blogs

A 32-year-old New Yorker who spent a year trying to master every recipe in a book of French cookery has become the inaugural winner of a prize devoted to books born of blogs.