April 27 will mark the 188th birthday of former President and General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885). Grant, the son of an Ohio tanner, graduated in the middle of his West Point class and fought under General (and later President) Zachary Taylor in the Mexican War. Grant became the dominant military figure of the American Civil War (1861-1865) and political leader [...]
Saturday, April 24, 2010
The 30th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were presented yesterday. In opening remarks, Times Book Editor David L. Ulin spoke about the importance of reading. “In a culture of constant overflow, of toil and trouble and outright distraction, we need what books have to offer: their slowing stillness, their vertical plunge.” Current Interest winner [...]
Monday, April 19, 2010
The social networking site Twitter has donated its archive of tweets to the Library of Congress. The national library wants to store the collection of 140-characters-or-less postings in order to give researchers a way to revisit discussions of significant events. Twitter is now processing 55 million tweets daily. Access to specific tweets will be [...]
Friday, April 16, 2010
April 17 will mark the 40th anniversary of the safe return of the U.S. lunar spacecraft Apollo 13 and its three crewmen. An in-flight explosion in Oxygen tank No. 2 prevented Apollo 13 and astronauts James A. Lovell Jr., John L. Swigert Jr., and Fred W. Haise Jr. from landing on the moon. While the world [...]
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Yesterday, the Classic Movies at Noon film series featured Harvey starring Jimmy Stewart. The movie is based on Mary Chase’s 1944 Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name. While most of the audience had seen it before, all agreed it is a timeless classic that bears repeated viewing. Its gentle, life-affirming message of tolerance is [...]
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
The Pulitzer Prize award winners have been announced for 2010, including those for letters and drama. The fiction award goes to a first novel published by a small press, telling the story of three generations of a New England family. The winners are: Fiction— Tinkers, by Paul Harding History— Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who [...]
Monday, April 12, 2010
Polish President Lech Kaczynski along with his wife Maria were among those killed last week in a plane crash in Western Russia. Ninety-four other people died in the crash, including Poland’s army chief, deputy foreign minister and central bank governor. The high-profile Polish delegation was headed to the western Russian town of Smolensk to commemorate [...]
Friday, April 9, 2010
The American Booksellers Association, the national trade association for independent booksellers, yesterday announced the winners of its 2010 Indies Choice Book Awards. Winners were chosen by the owners and staff at ABA member stores nationwide. Book of the Year winners are: Adult Fiction– Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese Adult Nonfiction– The Lost City of [...]
Monday, April 5, 2010
April 14 will mark the 251st anniversary of George Frideric Handel’s death. Along with Johann Sebastian Bach and others, the German-born Handel is known as one of the great Baroque composers. Baroque was a genre of European classical music c. 1600 to 1750 closely related to church and court life that conveyed drama and elaborate [...]
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
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