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Posted by: Robert Casper
The following is a guest post by William Thompson, administrative specialist for the Library of Congress American Folklife Center. My name is Brock Thompson, and this fall I’ve started working as the program coordinator for the Poetry and Literature Center. A native of Toad Suck, Arkansas, and an historian by trade, I am so delighted …
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources
Posted by: Peter Armenti
On October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation that declared “the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” Lincoln’s famous Thanksgiving Day proclamation was in large part undertaken at the urging of Sarah Josepha Hale—poet, novelist, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, and, lest we forget, author of the …
Posted in: Collections
Posted by: Peter Armenti
On Friday, one of our sister blogs, the Music Division’s In the Muse, marked the hundredth birthday of British composer Benjamin Britten. Highlighting some of Music Division’s important Britten holdings, the post references a recording of Britten’s collaborator Peter Pears reciting W. H. Auden’s sonnet “The Composer” as part of a 1980 program at the …
Posted in: Collections
Posted by: Peter Armenti
One day in late August or early September, 1941, a 19-year-old Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot named John Gillespie Magee, Jr., who was then serving with the No. 412 Squadron in Royal Air Force Digby, England, sent a letter to his parents. “I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day,” he began. …
Posted in: Ask a Librarian, Collections, Digital Resources
Posted by: Caitlin Rizzo
Summer at the Library of Congress is a magical time. The halls of the Library’s Jefferson Building seem to fill with students and families, just as the desks in our office spaces seem to mysteriously go quiet and colleagues make a break for their own vacation. For me, it’s the season of the perfect lunch …
Posted in: Collections
Posted by: Caitlin Rizzo
The Bank of England announced last week that beginning in 2017 Jane Austen will replace Charles Darwin on the 10-pound note. The Times asks the question: which American authors would you choose to grace the dollar bill? You might want to start with a perusal of the Library’s Books That Shaped America beforehand. Wouldn’t want …
Posted in: Collections, News and Events
Posted by: Caitlin Rizzo
Last Friday, Julio Cortazar’s groundbreaking novel Hopscotch turned 50. For a slightly late Monday morning celebration, Cortazar fans should head to the Los Angeles Review of Books to read Ted Gioia’s essay “How to Win at Hopscotch.” Of course, if you’ve only read Cortazar’s short story collection you received for Christmas two years ago, you …
Posted in: Collections, News and Events, Poets Laureate
Posted by: Peter Armenti
Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of the first African-Americans to develop a national reputation for his poetry, was born on this day in 1872. To celebrate his life and work, the Library held a literary birthday reading earlier today featuring noted poets Holly Bass and Al Young, who read selections from Dunbar’s poetry and discussed his …
Posted in: Collections
Posted by: Caitlin Rizzo
In case you missed it, Bookriot’s Sunday Diversion “Guess These Books by the Catalog Cards” featured Library of Congress subject headings in a game to test your literary chops. Check out the Library’s catalog to create your own literary diversions. The New Yorker’s PageTurner announced last week that Tom Wolfe’s upcoming book will be based …
Posted in: Collections, News and Events, Poets Laureate