Evidently some writers are prepared to shell out $20 apiece for Faber’s old Blackwing pencils. A box goes for a cool $250. One essayist explains that the Blackwing has a sleek and unique design, and if you’ve ever used one, you know it is a very smooth-writing and easy to use pencil. Its famous slogan ‘Half the Pressure, Twice the . . .
It’ll be quiet around here for the next few days. Why not brush up on those old literary bar jokes, wander around Dickens’ London, try your hand at converting Shakespeare’s sonnets into haiku, and visit Rake’s Progress and Rockslinga? (Thanks to the proprietress of Volumes — who says, upon learning that Anne Rice’s forthcoming book is narrated by Jesus Christ, . . .
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince and Wind, Sand and Stars, disappeared while on a spy mission for the Allies during World War II. The wreckage of his plane was positively identified only last year. Although the cause of the crash remains unknown, there is some suspicion that he committed suicide. For the Guardian last weekend, Robert Macfarlane . . .
I thought the Yankee or Dixie Dialect quiz had disappeared forever, but some kind soul has resurrected it here. (Thanks, Andrew.) In February, 2004, I scored 72% Dixie. Today I got 70%. Am I doomed to lose 2% more of my semi-native tongue with every year I stay in the Northeast? Longtime readers will have picked up on my . . .
While gearing up to reread F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night,* I decided to take a look at Fitzgerald’s Contemporary Authors profile. It includes this brief excerpt from a letter Fitzgerald wrote to John Peale Bishop about the differences between Gatsby and Tender is the Night: The intention in the two books was entirely different…. Gatsby was shooting at . . .