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New Waugh study

Alexander Waugh, Evelyn’s grandson and a “morbid collector” of evidence of the elder Waugh’s egomania, admires a new investigation into real-life secrets behind Brideshead Revisited.

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Less fun with usage & linguistics

I used to enjoy curiosities like “How many words did Shakespeare know?” but now I just imagine Language Log’s impending evisceration and regretfully move on.

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Wit, precision, uppers, and God: the Muriel Spark bio

My review of Martin Stannard’s Muriel Spark biography appears at Barnes & Noble Review (and is reprinted at Salon). One of the things that struck me while reading is just how easily Spark — one of the finest and funniest novelists of the last century, or of any century — could have continued to write poetry and criticism and not . . .

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Coming up: Future of criticism, and Chapters

This Saturday, April 17, I’ll be discussing the future of criticism as part of the Center for Fiction’s Conference in Honor of Roger Shattuck. Other participants in the panel discussion are Granta editor John Freeman and New Republic critic Jed Perl, and it will be moderated by National Book Critics Circle President Jane Ciabattari. I’m also excited to attend Lorin . . .

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