In The Spotlight

The Joy of Waterboiling is the first foreign language book in contention for the much sought after Diagram Book prize. And what exactly is the Diagram book prize?  Well according to The Guardian it's an award that's been sponsored by trade magazine Bookseller for...

Wizards, Moomins and pirates: the magic and mystery of literary maps  is a recent post in The Guardian in which writers Robert Macfarlane, Frances Hardinge, and Harry Potter cartographer, Miraphora Mina unfold their favourite maps They also tell the stories behind...

Talk about a publishing faux pas!  Moby Dick rejection letter asks “does it have to be a whale?” The video in this post "details a rejection letter received by American novelist Herman Melville after he submitted his manuscript for Moby Dick to the editor of the...

To say that Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein was a tad eccentric might be an understatement. According to this post in JSTOR Daily , she "saw love and death as connected. She visited the cemetery to commune with her dead mother. And with her lover." And that's not...

Check out these 14 Fun College Classes You Wish You Could Take "Are you getting credits for eating ice cream, listening to music, surfing, or dating? No? Well, you could if you were enrolled in one of these courses! Each semester, professors come up with some pretty...

According to this post on mlive.com. "Luzinterruptus, an anonymous Spain-based art collective, is teaming up with the University of Michigan's Institute for the Humanities to create the large-scale, illuminated book installation on Tuesday, Oct. 23, that will "pave"...

Emily Temple at the Literary Hub website seems surprised that aspiring book hoarders "only have to own one thousand books to qualify" for the title. According to Ms. Temple that total "seems a bit low" and to prove it, she provides this list of the 10 famous book...

Here's a post from Nautilus that will warm the hearts of English majors everywhere. It recounts how a Harvard medical student is learning to both treat and heal using poetry as part of his toolkit. Once more concerned about the biomedical aspects of healing, Danny W....

According to BU Today, Boston University is planning a new, innovative "350,000-square-foot tower that will reach 20 stories and 291 feet at its full height." But the coolest thing about the new facility is its proposed design. Toronto-based KPMB Architects have come...

According to this post in the Chronicle of Higher Education, every night at 10 p.m. there is a Binghamton University professor who "waits for the online release of the next day’s New York Times crossword puzzle, downloads it, and typically solves it in three to 10...

According to this news item from JSTOR daily, Europe's oldest intact book was found in a saint’s coffin!  "...This manuscript — known as the St. Cuthbert Gospel, or Stonyhurst Gospel (for Stonyhurst College where it was once held) — is the earliest surviving intact...

The New York Public Library's Riverside Branch has just introduced their NYPL "Grow Up Work Fashion Collection. New Yorkers need to look no further that the Riverside Branch Library to get some serious sartorial help for an upcoming "job interview, wedding, audition,...

Another breakthrough in education from the Ivy League! Sleep 101: Harvard Freshmen Required To Take Sleep Course Before School Begins. Evidently, it all started when student Raymond So approached the Undergraduate Council about some church bells that ring so loudly...

People obsessed by all things pirate know that September 19th is "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" and as a service to all of you, here's a great source for anyone who plans to celebrate properly. And "if you think that there are only a few pirate terms and...