Solzhenitsyn Dies at 89; David Remnick Reflects

in Harvard, History, Literature | August 3rd, 2008

Alek­san­dr Solzhen­it­syn, who chron­i­cled the abus­es of the Sovi­et regime and gained world­wide fame with A Day in the Life of Ivan Deniso­vich, has died at 89. (Get the New York Times obit here.) Once asked what Solzhen­it­syn means to lit­er­a­ture and the his­to­ry of Rus­sia, David Rem­nick, the edi­tor of The New York­er, had this to stay: “It’s impos­si­ble to imag­ine a writer whose affect on a soci­ety has been greater than Alek­san­dr Solzhen­it­syn’s affect on the fate of Rus­sia  …” In the video post­ed below, Rem­nick elab­o­rates on Solzhen­it­syn’s con­tri­bu­tions, and it’s worth remem­ber­ing that Rem­nick won a Pulitzer dur­ing the 90s for his best­seller, Lenin’s Tomb.

(Note: you can read the lec­ture Solzhen­it­syn gave upon receiv­ing the Nobel Prize in 1970 here, and lis­ten to his 1978 Har­vard grad­u­a­tion speech here.)

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Stephen Colbert Reads Joyce’s Ulysses

in Comedy, Literature, Uncategorized | July 2nd, 2008

Every June 16 is Blooms­day, which com­mem­o­rates Jame’s Joyce’s Ulysses (get free audio here). In Dublin and around the world, cel­e­bra­tions usu­al­ly include a read­ing of Joyce’s clas­sic. This year, in New York City, one high-pro­file event fea­tured Stephen Col­bert read­ing the part of Leopold Bloom, the char­ac­ter around which the sprawl­ing nov­el turns. You can lis­ten to Col­bert read here and here. Enjoy, and I will catch you back here after the hol­i­day week­end.

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Great Literature in Three Lines or Less

in Literature | June 25th, 2008

Here’s 1984, Moby Dick, Par­adise Lost, The Great Gats­by and oth­er clas­sics boiled down to three lines, cour­tesy of McSweeny’s.

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Tobias Wolff Reads From His New Collection

in Books, Literature | May 20th, 2008

Segue­ing from our last post, I want­ed to fea­ture a read­ing giv­en by Tobias Wolff, a mas­ter of the short sto­ry, who also hap­pens to teach cre­ative writ­ing at Stan­ford.

In March, he released a new book, Our Sto­ry Begins: New and Select­ed Sto­ries. And below we have post­ed a clip of him read­ing from a piece called “The Ben­e­fit of the Doubt.” As you’ll see, Wolff knows how to give his sto­ries a very good read. Enjoy.

(PS If you like lit­er­a­ture in audio for­mat, then feel free to peruse our Free Audio Book Col­lec­tion. Also note that if you sign up for Audi­ble, you can down­load two best­selling audio books for free. Get more info on the deal here.)
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Rare Recording of Walt Whitman Reading From His Poem “America”

in Literature, Poetry | May 17th, 2008

Appar­ent­ly, this is “an authen­tic wax cylin­der record­ing of Whit­man read­ing from his late poem ‘Amer­i­ca’ that appeared in 1888 …”

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Introducing The Straddler

in Literature | May 5th, 2008

A quick heads up: The first issue of The Strad­dler, a new quar­ter­ly online mag­a­zine, has just been launched. If the edi­tors have their way, it will be the “anti-mag­a­zine of our day.” In the first issue, you’ll find:

  • an essay explor­ing the rela­tion­ship between an Emi­ly Dick­in­son poem, the New Testament’s Book of Matthew, the Get­tys­burg Address, and George Bush’s 2007 Memo­r­i­al Day speech.
  • a con­sid­er­a­tion of the Amer­i­can gang­ster film in light of the Amer­i­can eco­nom­ic sys­tem;
  • a med­i­ta­tion on works by Anne Car­son and recent Nobelist Doris Less­ing; and also
  • some orig­i­nal art­work, poet­ry, and fic­tion.

Thanks Elaine for the heads up.

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Edgar Allan Poe’s Raven Read by 18 YouTubers (or Christopher Walken)

in Literature | April 15th, 2008

Can you bear it? If not, here’s a ver­sion by Christo­pher Walken.

(This video has not been added to our YouTube playlist.)

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Interview with Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet, Robert Hass

in Literature | April 9th, 2008

This week, the Pulitzer Prize for poet­ry went to Robert Hass, a UC Berke­ley pro­fes­sor and for­mer U.S. poet lau­re­ate. To mark the occa­sion, we’re post­ing here Sier­ra Club Radio’s inter­view with Hass. The inter­view, record­ed this past Sat­ur­day (mp3 — iTunes — web site), delves into Hass’ “thoughts on the inter­sec­tion between lan­guage and our envi­ron­ment, how he decid­ed to use his posi­tion as Poet Lau­re­ate for advo­ca­cy, and has him read­ing selec­tions from his new book of poet­ry Time and Mate­ri­als — win­ner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. He also gives some insights into the col­lec­tion and sto­ries behind some of the poems.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

101 Ear­ly Wal­lace Stevens Poems on Free Audio

Lis­ten­ing to Famous Poets Read­ing Their Own Work

The Art of Read­ing a Poem (Accord­ing to Harold Bloom)

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