Themes & Projects

Mysteries, December 2008–January 2009

Maritime literature, January–March 2009

Melville read-through, part I, TypeeWhite-Jacket, December 2009–January 2010

Whirlwind tour of Russian literature, February–May 2010

Epistolary literature, July 2009–June 2010

Melville read-through, part II, Moby-DickBilly Budd, July–September 2010

The Unstructured Clarel Readalong, August–September 2010

The Art of the Novella Challenge, August 2011

The bibliographing Reading Challenge, January 2011–present



Authors

The Invisible Hook by Peter T. Leeson

The popularity of pirate histories and popular economics has culminated in The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, by Peter T. Leeson. Take a rational choice framework, mix with the golden age of Anglo-American piracy, and shake well (don’t forget to add a great cover). The resulting ideas are compelling and fun, and [...]

“such ruthless suppression of the ego for the sake of the text”

Less than halfway through The Book of Evidence I decided I would probably have to read all John Banville’s books someday. It was that good. And I’m going to have to read it again, most definitely.

I knew of the surface similarity as well as references to Lolita, and ended up really feeling like [...]