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Culture and Arts

Literature and Poetry Links

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WhichBook - This English based-site that allows you to search for books using a character's name, plot shape, type of main character, country the book is set in, sex, no sex etc. But make no mistake, this doesn't encompass all books. It involves fiction and poetry in paperback written in or translated into English and published (with very few exceptions) since 1995.

The site has received a Visionary Design Award for accessibility to visually impaired user and there is a demonstration which illustrates how to use the service.

Literature, Poetry and Reading

"She hurries from the house, wearing a coat too heavy for the weather. It is 1941. Another war has begun. She has left a note for Leonard, and another for Vanessa. She walks purposefully toward the river, certain of what she'll do, but even now she is almost distracted by the sight of the downs, the church, and a scattering of sheep, incandescent, tinged with a faint hint of sulfur, grazing under a darkening sky. She pauses, watching the sheep and the sky, then walks on. The voices murmur behind her; bombers drone in the sky, though she looks for the planes and can't see them. She walks past one of the farm workers (is his name John?), a robust, small-headed man wearing a potato-colored vest, cleaning the ditch that runs through the osier bed. He looks up at her, nods, looks down again into the brown water. As she passes him on her way to the river she thinks of how successful he is, how fortunate, to be cleaning a ditch in an osier bed. She herself has failed. She is not a writer at all, really; she is merely a gifted eccentric."

Read the entire excerpt from The Hours by Michael Cunningham at the Bookbrowse site

Read Daisy Miller, Part 1 by Henry James at Page by Page Books

Read the Joyce Carol Oates story, The Fruit Cellar from The Ontario Review Inc., in the New Statesman

Links

  • Bartleby - Literature, Verse and reference - This site, in addition to hosting The Oxford Book of English Verse, has added the Yale Book of American Verse, Modern British Poetry, Modern American Poetry, Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the 17th Century and the Golden Treasury. Searchable by keyword of browsable by author, title or even by the first line of a poem. Quotations, Encyclopaedias, King James Bible and more in addition to Gray's Anatomy, Strunk's Elements of Style and the Oxford Shakespeare.

  • Bas Bleu Bookseller by Post - A collection of carefully chosen books from an Atlanta- based small bookseller. As they proclaim:

    "Our selections are eclectic — and rarely do any of them appear on bestseller lists. Our travel books offer more than lists of hotels and restaurants; they’re the stories of gifted writers. Our books for children celebrate imagination and humor rather than cautionary tales." Bas bleu from the French means blue stocking; a literary woman. We received their catalog in the mail and thought that you'd enjoy their choices. There are also related products such as book darts, cds, scarves and men's ties, notecards, a booklover's repair kit, tote bags and the like.

  • Book Arts Web - If you love books and, in particular, handmade books, read these descriptions of their work by two artists at AbeCedarium An Exhibit of Alphabet Books: William Laufer, The Woodlands, TX, P: An Excursus into Liminal Space, 10 x 11 x 1 3/4 inches. "A binding of three sections is sewn to an unsupported concertina, with covers of Rising Stonehenge and endpapers of red, tobacco and deep yellow Fabriano Ingres Cover. Text papers are Rives Lightweight with illustrations in encaustic, pochoir, photoengraving and woodcuts on hand-cast paper and papyrus. Edition of 5. 1998." "Nancy Ruth Leavitt, Stillwater, ME, A Light Alphabet, The world of light from A - Z, 8 3/4 x 9 x 1 1/4 inches. The book has covers of plexiglas, a vellum concertina spine and coptic sewing with waxed linen thread. The endpapers and text are paste papers of Arches Text Wove with one sheet of mould-made Bodleian. The painting and lettering are of gouache and glair, crayons and colored pencil. The text is from the annals of physics as a journey into and realization of my obsession with light, color and the alphabet.' 1998." Lose yourself in observing a different kind of jewel.

  • BookSpotCom - A central hub for links to other book-related sites, reviews, reading lists and stores including: children, young adult, antique, science fiction and such mystery sites with the intriguing name of 'Bloodstained Bookshelf'. Resources for writers, include The Writer's Guild, SPAWN (Small Publishers, Authors and Writers), African-American writers, romance writers and a glossary of poetic terms. For the writer's classic resource this site has: William Strunk's Elements of Style, a part of the Bartleby Archive.

  • Bibliofind - Their income is derived solely from fees which booksellers pay this site to list their books on Bibliofind. Old, used and rare books can be found readily, but more current ones can be ordered on-line.

  • Book TV.org: C-Span's source of nonfiction book information on the web and a complement to Book TV's weekend programming on C-Span2. Children's books are also a significant part of the TV schedule.

  • Book Wire - The parent company of Publisher's Weekly has a selection of their products, including an authoritative best-seller list and a wonderful resource: listings by author, title, publisher, state, bookstore and events including TV programs to find appearances, lectures and signings by your favorite author.

  • Britfilms - The British Council's Film and Television Department producers two publications for film makers and fans. The Catalogue, which is a yearly magazine about films in the Empire offers synopses of films, shorts and documentaries during the year. There is also a QuickSearch feature on every page which will scan the database for Titles, Directors and Leading Players. The Directory of International Film and Video Festivals is just that, giving details on how and when to attend.

  • Culture Finder - A database of 300,000 performing arts events in 1,300 cities and a weekly newsletter for leads on discount seats in 12 major cities. Purchasing tickets on-line is a plus.

  • DiscoveryCom - The same sources behind the Discovery and Learning Channel television programs have a site that includes guides from ancient history to space, travel and expeditions.

    Exploding Dictionary - "The Internet is Chaos. Chaos populated with small Shadows of Order...Sometimes you hit the net looking for a simple piece of Information, only to find page after page that doesn't answer your question, or contradicts the page you just visited...My first two projects were a dictionary of the English language, and a jargon reference. The interface is crude, but the entries are massively cross-referenced allowing the reader to reach Understanding in record time." (Explanation provided by Chris Knight.)

  • Viewers can browse the dictionary by alphabetical entry or search by keyword. "The basic idea is to provide a massivly cross-referenced dictionary system. Hypertext is the researcher's dream come true, allowing for instant jumps to related or unknown material. The information is provided twice. First it is displayed 'clean', then below it is displayed with each individual word hyperlinked. "

  • Female Detective - A U.K. based site with reviews and mini-biographies, complete book lists, editor's choice of best novels, links to forums about mysteries.

  • Festival Finder - An enjoyable, well-designed and kept-up-to-date site that guides you to 1,500 music festivals in North America. Click to your favorite type of music, or use the search feature to locate festivals by date, location, performers or festival name. I plunged into the zydeco site and was captivated by the poster for the festival.

  • The Invisible Library - A 'catalog' of books that appear in other books' as the site terms it: Within the library's catalog you will find imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound. Some of the book-within-a-book pseudo-titles are "Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes," "A Phantom Hand," Invisible Worms," "Diary of a Young Girl's Illness," "Key to All Mythologies," "Under a Loggia," "The Shuttered Mind," "Twixt Cossack and Cannon," All of Them Witches," "Men, Monks, and Gamekeepers; a Study in Popular Legend," The Maxims of Marriage or The Duties of a Married Woman, Together with Her Daily Exercises," Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male," "Thoughts on the Prevention of Diseases most usual among Seamen," "The Lustful Turk," The Bitch Pack meets on Wednesday" and "Magical Me." Can you guess the authors and title of the book?

  • Language Sites on the Internet - Part of Richard Lederer's 'verbivorous' site, this is a collection of links all relating and leading you to the celebration of words: olde english sayings, word detective, etymology, grammar and usage, punning, word & letter play. There's a daily on-line column featuring little known facts about well known words and phrases, home for abused quote marks, common errors in usage (ah, so needed), and for all of you who are constantly asking, 'is it e-mail or email', wired style.

  • Literary Traveler - A casual, gentle site funded by the Nomad Foundation whose aim is to create a more literate and educated society in the U.S. and the world. The site lists tour companies that will take you to the real and imagined haunts mentioned in novels or frequented by their authors. There are evocative articles about writers and their settings as well as a section devoted to events concentrating on authors and a celebration of their works.

  • Mastertexts - Another site (actually, I don't think there can be too many) with full texts of literary masterpieces: Austen, Baum, Bronte sisters, Lewis Carrol, Wilkie Collins, Daniel, Defoe, Arthur Conan Doyle, George Eliot, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, Charles Kingsley, Sir Walter Scott, Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Thackeray, Twain and Verne. Pull up a chair and enjoy.

  • Orange Prize for Literature - This prize celebrates novels of excellence by women writers and helps promote them. The prize was created by a group of senior women in publishing who wondered why so few novels by women were making it to the shortlists of the established literary awards." The site includes: the long and short list of nominees, the winning books and authors, interviews with the judging panel, news, reviews and competitions. There's a newsletter and chatterbooks: aimed at 4 - 12 year olds, Chatterbooks is a library based scheme, which creates and supports children's reading groups and their own film awards.

  • Oxford English Dictionary - Their word of the day feature is just that, with the appropriate pronunciation, etymology, quotations and date chart that imparts an idea of when the word came into being. The allusions are literary, the examples delicious. The OED modestly calls itself, " the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium." There.

  • Shakespeare and the Internet - Homage to the Bard: links, scholarly papers, drama festival, a 'sonnet' quiz and a virtual tour of the Globe, a Shakespeare timeline, and a Shakespeare genealogy.

  • Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia - Maintained by a high school teacher in New Port Richey, Florida this site includes examples of palindromes, French and Italian words and Biblical references. A separate section is devoted to names of people that became words (Cesarean section: Gaius Julius Caesar, who according to legend was born in this manner; dunce: John Duns Scotus (who was actually very smart); saxophone: Antoine Joseph Sax; eggs benedict: E. C. Benedict (1834-1920) etc. The site also includes words most likely to be misspelled, a compilation of last words from several dictionaries and other reference books and perhaps most important words to be used in a game of scrabble. There's also a wordplay answer board.
  • World Wide Words - An English site by Michael Quinion investigating international English from a British viewpoint and revolving around the history of words, its quirks, curiosities and evolution. The site is organized into sections, each with its own index for navigation. Some examples of the questions posed to the site: Where the name of that odd comestible the 'curate's egg' comes from; why you 'eighty-six' a thing when you dispose of it; and some thoughts on the origin of 'spiff'. Investigations into words such as Florilegium, Emmet and grockle, Tawdry, Bezoar, Semordnilap are displayed.

Literature and Poetry Sightings

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