Hunter Library English Blog

Talk Like Shakespeare Day

2009-04-23T15:03:00.003-04:00

Be clamorous, knaves and rogues; Sirrah and Mistresses; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. 'Tis Shakespeare's 445th birthday! Thither, get thee to http://www.talklikeshakespeare.org

Put a Poem in Your Pocket

2009-04-06T15:29:00.003-04:00

April is National Poetry Month. Check out the website from the Academy of American Poets. Events include Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 30. What poem will you carry in your pocket?

Inaugural Poet

2008-12-19T09:15:00.004-05:00

Elizabeth Alexander was chosen to read at next month's presidential inauguration. Read her poetry at Hunter Library and at her website http://www.elizabethalexander.net/poems.html. According to the Washington Post, Alexander will be the first poet to read at an inauguration since 1997.

Summer Reading 2008

2008-06-17T12:54:00.001-04:00

Publications like Real Simple and The Guardian ask notable authors (and sometimes librarians and booksellers) to recommend summer reading. The idea [I think] is that these people are in the know about the current literary scene. But what actually happens? Many of them chicken out and choose the old, pre-approved standby novels that most of us read in school. So if you are the type who likes to read War and Peace or Machiavelli while you are lounging poolside, check out those lists.

For everyone else, here are my favorite reader's advisory pages for actual summer reading:

NPR Summer Books – your best bet – includes nonfiction, fiction, cookbooks, and more
Slate – Finally some brave authors recommend true beach reads!
Powell's New Favorites – Powell's also has great blogs
Leisure Reading in Hunter Library – shameless plug for our staff picks!
Salon has a weekly Summer Reads column. Here’s one to try

"Howl" Recording from Reed College

2008-02-15T15:42:00.005-05:00

The earliest known audio recording of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" was discovered in the archives at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Listen to it online! http://web.reed.edu/news_center/multimedia/index.html

Costa and Edgar Awards

2008-01-23T08:40:00.000-05:00

The winner of this year's Costa Award is Scottish writer A.L. Kennedy for her novel, Day -- coming soon to Hunter Library http://wncln.wncln.org/record=b3003423. The Costa Awards go to residents of the U.K. and are sponsored by Costa Coffee, which I suppose is an across-the-pond Starbucks, http://www.costabookawards.com/awards/index.aspx.

For mystery novel fans, The Edgar award nominees were announced as well --http://www.theedgars.com/nominees.html.

100 Notable Books from the New York Times

2007-11-26T10:37:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite lists of the year, The New York Times' "100 Notable Books of the Year," is available online! Many are already in Hunter Library; many are coming soon!

The New York Times also has an interesting article on why we read.

New Resource - Early English Books Online

2007-07-03T14:41:00.000-04:00

Check out the latest resource from Hunter Library - Early English Books Online. This major resource for primary research contains digital images of facsimile pages of "virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700"! More info at http://hunterlibrarynews.blogspot.com/2007/06/new-database-early-english-books-online.html

For the Armchair Traveler

2007-06-18T12:55:00.000-04:00

Not traveling to an exotic locale this summer? No worries -- the latest literary prize winners will take you all over the world. And if you are traveling, these are better than your average beach/airplane reads.

Chinua Achebe (Nigeria) recently won the Man Booker International Prize this year for his body of work. The shortlist for this award also included newly knighted Sir Salman Rushdie.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria) won the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction (which highlights women writers) for Half of a Yellow Sun.
Per Petterson (Norway) won the Impac Dublin Award for Out Stealing Horses (coming soon to Hunter Library).

To travel to other international settings including Ireland, England, Australia, India, and the Texas/Mexico border, check out the shortlists for the Orange Prize and the Impac Dublin Award.

New Database - LLBA!

2007-06-11T10:46:00.000-04:00

Hunter Library has a new database, Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)! (Off-campus users need to use their 92# to log in).

Search for topics in "all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics" and "descriptive, historical, comparative, theoretical, and geographical linguistics." Also covers some topics in communication, poetics, and literary theory. Links to the library's full-text holdings will be coming soon.

Add this Blog to Your RSS Reader!

2007-05-23T11:28:00.001-04:00

Add this link to your RSS Reader (cut and paste)http://hunterenglish.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

What is an RSS Reader?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) delivers the latest content from websites (blogs, news sites, etc.) to a webpage (a feed reader) that you can access anywhere, anytime. This allows you to control the information you read and when you read it. So instead of visiting a bunch of webpages every day, I can just pull up my Bloglines account and read new postings and stories from the Chronicle, the NY Times Book Review, and a multitude of technology and book review blogs.

First, you need an RSS reader such as Bloglines or NetVibes. Yahoo (MyYahoo) and Google (Google Reader) have readers. Here's a big list o' readers: http://allrss.com/rssreaders.html.

Next, sign up for some feeds. Visit your favorite websites and see if they have an RSS feature.
You are looking (usually at the bottom of the page) for "XML" or "RSS" or "Atom" or it may say "subscribe" or "subscribe to posts." Sometimes there will be an orange icon or box. Your reader will give you instructions for adding new posts.

Clear as mud? Here's a nice video with good instructions "RSS In Plain English"

Some good RSS Feeds to add (Cut and paste links into your reader; if you click on them, you will get gobeldy-gook)
http://www.oed.com/rss.xml - OED Word of the Day
http://litfestival.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default - WCU Literary Festival Blog
http://aldaily.com/rss/rss.xml - Arts & Letters Daily
http://chronicle.com/help/rss.htm - Chronicle of Higher Education (WCU has a subscription, so if you are on-campus, you can get the full text of all the articles)
http://hunterenglish.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default - This blog!
http://library.wcu.edu/finding/NEWBOOKS/langlitrss.asp - New Books In Lit & Language (at Hunter Library)
http://hunterlibrarynews.blogspot.com/atom.xml - Hunter Library News

Interesting NY Times Article, "Writers Take Out Their Knives"

2007-05-21T09:37:00.000-04:00

The NY Times asked several authors if there were any classic novels that could lose some extra weight. Here's what they said:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/weekinreview/20mrich.html?ex=1337313600&en=e10015fa41b17553&amp;amp;amp;amp;ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink Reminder: you have to read the whole book before you can say snotty things about it. I am not recommending "compact editions"! Check out an unabridged classic at Hunter Library.

P.S. - The opinions expressed by the authors (especially Mr. Mailer) are not necessarily shared by this blogger!

Save the Book Review!

2007-04-30T16:11:00.000-04:00

The National Book Critics Circle has been campaigning to save book reviews. Apparently, they are an endangered species. Check it out http://www.bookcritics.org/?go=saveBookReviews

It’s very interesting, and they have a blog to discuss the issue: http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/

And here’s info about how to get involved: http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-to-get-involved-in-saving-book.html

Word up, Wordsworth

2007-04-25T16:40:00.000-04:00

Wordworth's daffodils poem, "I wandered lonely as a cloud," has been turned into a rap. Because the lake district wasn't appealing enough. . .

The rapper? A squirrel named MC Nuts (I am not kidding!). You have to see it (and hear it) to believe it! http://www.golakes.co.uk/wordsworthrap/

In other scary literary tourism news, check out Dickens World! http://www.dickensworld.co.uk

Pulitzer Prizes Are Announced

2007-04-25T16:22:00.001-04:00