: The Manuscript of Beowulf (1000 AD) Can Now Be Viewed Online for the First Time
Made around the year 1000, most likely during the reign of King Æthelred the Unready (978-1016), this manuscript committed to parchment a tale that (in some modern scholars’ opinions) had been passed down for centuries, between generations of storytellers.
In its present state, the poem, named after its hero Beowulf, contains more than 3,000 lines, and divides conventionally into three comparatively equal sections: Beowulf’s struggle with the monster, Grendel; the revenge of Grendel’s mother; and Beowulf’s final contest with a dragon, which was guarding a hoard of treasure. What marks out Beowulf is the gripping and highly developed story, and the richness of its language.
Sonia Sotomayor’s “My Beloved World” Becomes New York Times Bestseller
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor can add New York Times bestselling author to a list of achievements that doesn’t exactly need padding.
(via stiffcrosscurrents)
Why teach for America is not welcome in my classroom
This is some grade A bullshit TFA is pulling.
From the article:
Three years ago, a TFA recruiter plastered the Fordham campus with flyers that said “Learn how joining TFA can help you gain admission to Stanford Business School.” The message of that flyer was “use teaching in high-poverty areas a stepping stone to a career in business.” It was not only profoundly disrespectful to every person who chooses to commit their life to the teaching profession, it advocated using students in high-poverty areas as guinea pigs for an experiment in “resume-padding” for ambitious young people.
The article has many other great points, but this is the one that stuck out to me - Teaching is not a profession that should be benefiting the teacher. The desire to use students as your own personal stepping stone is one of the main warning signs that you should not be allowed within a classroom.
NPR Books has a wonderful cartoon by the wonderful Jen Sorensen in honor of the wonderful birthday of the wonderful Pride and Prejudice.
Don't judge a book by its genre!
Read this blog post! I’m thinking about printing it out and handing it to the next person who comes in mad because their book group is doing a science fiction novel or their friend recommended a YA book.
Here’s my favorite quote: “And, yes, the go-to genres for dismissal to prove superiority are almost always ones tainted by girl germs.”
The Autism Fiction Archive
Fiction with Autistic characters.
Good Autistic characters.
Probably mostly by Autistic authors, but I dunno, I’m not a mod. You should go send them your stuff/links to your stuff.
Read Ken Liu’s amazing story that swept the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards
I have literally never cried this much at a story. Usually stories maybe make me tear up a bit, but I have tears streaming down my face right now.
(Also I have been warned that you should definitely not read the comments. I suggest Shut Up.)
Click here to try our new interactive story. See if you can get a smooch from a scientific legend!
(The topic was chosen by fans on our Facebook page.)
After Lena Dunham's lawyer threatened to sue Gawker for leaking her book proposal, the original article has been updated to become a smirking, vindictive thing of beauty.
I AM HERE FOR THIS.
I AM HERE FOR THIS.
I AM HERE FOR THIS.
I AM HERE FOR ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL OF THIS.
Go read it.
The snark, it BURNS.
I CAN’T STOP LAUGHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
From One Mine, the Gold of Pop History
In the recorded-music business, most of the recent headline numbers haven’t been good. Sales are down, layoffs are up. Don’t even ask how many people downloaded the latest Katy Perry album illegally.
But for a project by Columbia Records in celebration of its own big number — 125 years in business — the label decided to take the high road by focusing on the broad historical influence of the company and its artists, including Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, Johnny Cash, Leonard Bernstein, Billie Holiday and Al Jolson, to name just a few of its giants.
The centerpiece is “360 Sound: The Columbia Records Story,” a book by the Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, which will be published this week by Chronicle Books. A related exhibition at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles opens on Nov. 7.
