Category: Future of the Book

Ian Mckellen reading The Odyssey

Ian Mckellen’s voice is excellent. The Odyssey is excellent. Ian Mckellen’s voice reading the Odyssey is even better! This is essentially Mckellen impersonating Homer himself. Are there any other exciting audiobooks of Core texts you have stumbled upon? Let us know!

Virtues and Virtual Reality

Do you remember a few years ago after the last Harry Potter book had long since been read and the last movie installment’s tickets long lost? The anticipation had died down, and, despite the attempts to replicate the success of the Potter series, nothing seemed to be able to renew that excitement and anticipation that […]

Check out Chekhov: He will give you social skills

In a post for the NY Times, Pam Belluck describes a recent study on the effects of literature on social interaction: After reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence — skills that come in especially handy when you are trying to […]

The Major #1: English?

Looming above many college students is the uncertainty of choosing a major. The Core does not have specific instructions on how to make this important decision… However, here we highlight some of the common opinions on the matter. Today’s topic is the English Major: In a thoughtful though rather biased article from The Chronicle Review we […]

Exciting new game ‘Walden’

The Core is delighted to share that game designer Tracy Fullerton is developing a new game, Walden. Thoreau’s Walden is one of the key texts in CC202’s study of Enlightenment and Modernity, and the game simulates the experiment in living made by Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond in 1845-47. Ms. Fullerton was kind enough to […]

Writers’ Reasons For Reading

Here is where these great writers get their zest for reading: “Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant, and interesting.” Aldous Huxley “Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring […]

An Oddly Modern Antiquarian Bookshop

In an intriguing article for the New York Times, Jody Rosen discusses a fascinating but little-known bookstore called Monkey’s Paw, and gives ideas on how such businesses fit into today’s literary world. Here is an extract: “Life-Spark Stories for the Intelligent Young.” Attributed to the author “R. K.,” it tells the story of a “bright […]

Maximal Meaning in Minimal Space: the History of Punctuation

The Core presents the original English version of an article that was published in the April 2013 issue of Hiatus, la revue. Here is an extract: Punctuation, as any dictionary will tell you, consists of the marks that dance around the letters of a text to mark clauses, sentences and inflection. What, though, is minimal punctuation? Is it in […]

Times Higher Education – “Creative Writing”

The Core presents an interesting feature from Times Higher Education, in which they offer their insight on what the causes, and possible consequences, of the rise of “creative writing” may be. Here is a sample: Despite the speed and apparent smoothness with which creative writing has become incorporated into English departments, or (especially in the US) as a […]

A Review of Eric Hobsbawm’s Posthumous Essays

In his article for the Guardian, Richard Evans discusses the late Eric Hobsbawm’s posthumous collection of essays, and how they reflect the changes in the historian’s views over time. Here is an extract: What Hobsbawm’s Marxism also did, however, was to turn him from a lifelong optimist – while it was still possible for some to think, […]