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Lary Wallace on the death of John Leonard

“When I start to read John Leonard,” said Kurt Vonnegut, “it is as though I, while simply looking for the men’s room, blundered into a lecture by the smartest man who ever lived.” Leonard died last week, the day after casting his vote for Obama, and his absence is mourned far and wide in the literary world. (Laura Miller’s remembrance . . .

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OED’s word of the year

Hypermiling — a concept foreign to most New Yawkers — is the OED’s word of the year. (Last month I attended the OED’s anniversary events on OUP’s dime.)

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On (and from) Graham Greene: A Life in Letters

Richard Greene’s Graham Greene: A Life in Letters, finally published in the States early next month, collects a wide sampling of the author’s voluminous correspondence and is, for any admirer of the work who’s interested in understanding the author, an indispensable resource. Greene was a passionate man, a stubborn man, a sometimes-loyal but often-disloyal (sometimes rather self-importantly so) man, and . . .

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