How can Virginia Woolf’s walking stick, Malcolm X’s briefcase, and Dante’s Divine Comedy have anything in common? Thomas Mellins, curator of The New York Public Library’s “Celebrating 100 Years” exhibition, explains in this video.
Talk about confluence. During the past nine days, the New York Public Library has announced a centennialexhibit that includes Virginia Woolf’s walking stick, the one she carried on the day she walked into the River Ouse. Leonard found it floating in the river after her death.
Virginia Woolf's walking stick at the NYPL
News of the exhibit has been widely publicized. At the same time, a new book about the River Ouse has been garnering lots of publicity. Reviews of To the River, by Olivia Laing, are all over the Internet.
What’s on View at the NYPL’s Centennial Exhibit (Slide Show), New Yorker (blog)
… a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood, “Cosmic Mystery” by Johannes Kepler, a manuscript of TS Eliot’s “The Waste Land” emended by Ezra Pound, and journals and diaries from Malcolm X, Vladimir Nijinsky, Annie Proulx, Virginia Woolf, and others. …
The Short List, Wall Street Journal
… including a 1911 letter from Houdini to the first library director, JS Billings, as the magician bestowed some books about handcuffs and his collection of “Conjurer’s Monthly”; a pair of Jack Kerouac’s glasses; Virginia Woolf’s last diary entry; …
To The River by Olivia Laing: review, Telegraph.co.uk
But a more famous suicide looms over Laing’s book: that of Virginia Woolf, who ended her life in 1941, wearing a fur coat and Wellington boots as she waded into the river at Rodmell. Laing notes that it was an end apparently foreshadowed in Woolf’s …
To the River: A Journey Beneath the Surface by Olivia Laing – review, The Guardian
History hasn’t crossed paths with the Ouse very often, and if we only know one thing about this river, it’s likely to be that it was where Virginia Woolf drowned herself – wearing Wellington boots, fastening on her hat and filling her jacket pockets …
To The River is going with the flow, Evening Standard
But the story of the Ouse will forever be bound up with the writing and the death of the novelist Virginia Woolf, who drowned herself in its murky waters one cold March day 60 years ago. Laing’s passages about the beauty and precision of Woolf’s prose …
An Ego of One’s Own, Tapped (blog) Last week at a panel, art critic Ben Davis spoke about rereading Virginia Woolf’s seminal essay and thinking about how we no longer need “a room of one’s own,” so much as “room in the head of one’s own.” In a culture of 24/7 news, . . .
‘Women and Work’ in music, words at cafe, Canada.com The poem ”Virginia Woolf Arrives on the E&N” displays Carol’s sense of humour with both content and form. Tracy Myers, muscian and spoken word artist, known from not only her work with ‘Tongue and Groove’ but also for her jazz drumming will bring a …
Is feminism relevant to 21st-century fiction?, The Independent The viewpoint is not dissimilar to Virginia Woolf’s ideal of literary androgyny outlined in her 1929 essay, A Room of One’s Own. “It is fatal,” she wrote, “for anyone who writes to think of their sex.” The essay suggested that women write as women, …
Stage calendar: May 13, 2011, Ventura County Star “Goat”: The Elite Theatre Company presents the world premiere of Arthur Kraft’s drama about what might have happened if a psychologist had prevented writer Virginia Woolf from committing suicide in 1941. 8 pm Fridays and Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays, …
IN PRODUCTION, The Daily Advertiser In “A Room of One’s Own,” Virginia Woolf imagines a fictional sister of Shakespeare — Judith — who was equally talented and equally ambitious, but is lost to history because she is a woman. “William and Judith” uses Woolf’s creation as a jumping-off …
Harold Bloom — a glimpse of the sublime, New Statesman That particular imaginative displacement does not mark the critical work of Dryden and Coleridge, Hazlitt and Ruskin, yet enters again with Pater and his Aesthetic school: Wilde and Yeats, Virginia Woolf and Wallace Stevens. What can be the function of …
Biography / The founding father, Ha’aretz The same year, Keter published the translated biographies of Marguerite Duras,Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir, as well as Israeli historian Tom Segev’s “Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends,” which was first published in English, …
A grizzled scribe chases his last story, Kansas City Star Virginia Woolf’s novel “Mrs. Dalloway” with the important personage in the back of a limousine driving through London while Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith walk the city’s streets on a collision course as the hour of Clarissa’s dinner party ...
The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam: review, Telegraph.co.uk This is the last line of a particularly exquisite paragraph, in which Anam writes like a mixture of George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. There is no purely “good” person here, least of all Maya, though there are innocent victims, including Piya, ..
CAREFUL, CAMILLA, HIS CROWN JEWELS ARE ON DISPLAY, Express.co.uk For over half a century Charleston House was the country getaway for the influential Bloomsbury Group – a band of artists, writers and philosophers made internationally famous by English author Virginia Woolf. The house is now open to the public as an …
The Tension Of A War To Come, As Seen From ‘Exile’, NPR She returns again and again to the activities and ruminations of Virginia Woolf. In 1940, Woolf writes in her diary: “Leonard says he has petrol in the garage for suicide should Hitler win.” Juers continues: “Virginia made some buns for tea. …
Walking with Ghosts, BOOK Southern Africa (blog) Most notable amongst the writer-walkers, apart from Virginia Woolf, were the three German-language writers: Robert Walser – Swiss, and contemporary of Franz Kafka; Walter Benjamin; and WG Sebald. Apart from their walking habits, and their melancholy, …
The End Or The Beginnings Of A Novelist, Swans Rather, the author of The End is a tardy modernist in the mold of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, or TS Eliot. He’s never playful and always deadly serious about his people and what they do. He constructs his story mosaic fashion and prefers collage to …
Much loved professor retires, PUC Chronicle Selig is currently working on a book about Virginia Woolf he has wanted to create for several years. This novel, Selig said, would fall within the realm of both fiction and nonfiction. This can be done by coming up with the details other individuals …
Private Voices in a Public Place: Diaries at the Morgan Library,WNYC mused diarist extraordinaire Virginia Woolf. The answer, in all these cases, is “us.” Sophia Hawthorne on love and marriage: “My heart is full, it rises to so high a mark, it overflows so bountifully, that were there not another heart to receive my …
Powerful Canadian book offers insight into fathers, ourselves, Vancouver Sun (blog) Gerard has been diligent in tracking down some of the world’s best English-language poems, essays and short stories about fathers, including about the fathers of Franz Kafka, Winston Churchill, ee cummings, Dylan Thomas and Virginia Woolf. …
Outdoor structures are new backyard focal points, Sacramento Bee “I had been craving my own space for a few years after my son was born and when I turned 40, there was a loud, nonstop Virginia Woolf voice in my head, telling me I needed a room of my own!” said Spiegelman, who was constantly distracted while working …
For the love of books – some of our top shops, New Zealand Herald The final chapter on independent bookstores has probably been debated as long as the demise of the printed book, which Virginia Woolf talked about way back in 1927, long before ebooks were even invented. ..
Making ends meet…. or reaching the end of the road?, Stage (blog) As Lyn Gardner tweeted in reply to me when I mentioned this, “Must have got dispatch rider job pretty sharp cos only finished in Virginia Woolf at Northern Stage on Sat”. But while this may have been a case of an actor self-dramatising their plight to …
Rooms of their own: Woman caves, Newsday (subscription) Writers, according to Virginia Woolf, need a room of their own. She believed they require privacy and big chunks of uninterrupted time to unleash their creativity. Men have known this for years. Peek into the basement, den or garage of …
No Fear: Bring ’em on, Greensboro News & Record (blog) He looked up idly, noticed the mural of great authors that included Henry James,Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen and so on as well as the display of “Oprah’s Selection” near the entrance. He asked himself, how did this happen? The answer he came up with is …
Montaigne, a man for all seasons, Le Monde Diplomatique As a result, writers and thinkers, ranging from Flaubert to Stefan Zweig, Voltaire to Virginia Woolf, embraced Montaigne as their contemporary. The great merit of Bakewell’s book is to remind us, with the same confident and wry touch of her subject, …
Gender and Unity of the Self in Virgina Woolf’s, Student Pulse The confluence of biography and fiction in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando raises the question, of which the book is highly aware, of which genre facilitates the proper perception of the truth. As Woolf writes, “Life, it has been agreed …
The political brain, Tweed Shire Echo Community News It’s quite a challenge, considering a few years back Pell claimed condoms made AIDS worse because it encouraged promiscuity, and then went on to have a stab at Virginia Woolf as an instigator of sexual and moral waywardness. …
Can pub trivia be hazardous to your health?, Las Vegas Weekly The following week, when our team was renamed Virginia Woolf Is for Lovers, the people spoke, and never stopped. Mike’s constant apologies to the sports fans as he asked questions about “Thackeraaay” and the crowd’s booing and responses of “Who cares? …
Albania the Beautiful: Francine Prose’s My New American Life, The Millions In Reading Like a Writer, Prose extols the virtues of elegant sentences, citing Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, and Phillip Roth as some of the masters of the craft. In My New American Life, Prose is on top of her game in this respect, the fluidity …
Blogging Woolf contributor Alice Lowe does a lot of writing. But somehow, even when she doesn’t mean to insert Virginia Woolf into her non-fiction pieces, Woolf makes an appearance anyway.
Two of Alice’s essays were published in recent issues of online journals, and you will find Virginia in both. Even though the subject matter — baseball and Elvis — seems unlikely to provide a Woolf connection, Alice finds one.
We know Virginia Woolf made it on The Daily Show, but has she ever been mentioned on Saturday Night Live? Apparently she and other women writers were in the script last fall, but they didn’t make the cut.
Jezebel.comreports that when Tina Fey hosted SNL on Oct. 17, her tribute to women writers that ended up as a parody was eliminated from the show.
Here’s a bit of what writers said about Woolf: “You know who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? Any home boy with a pair of eyeballs.”
Nine days worth of Woolf sightings here. Some are difficult to understand, like Kirstie Alley’s claim that she will do a TV series that is “sort of Virginia Woolf.” Others are the usual — references to Woolf’s writing, Woolf reading, Woolf’s mental state, and Woolf-inspired plays and music. Oh, and a new book on the River Ouse.
Virginia Woolf’s Words, a Singer’s Voice, New York Times This astringent line, about Thomas Hardy’s funeral, is from the diary of Virginia Woolf, and also from Dominick Argento’s classic 1974 song cycle, “From the Diary of Virginia Woolf.” Jennifer Johnson Cano The mezzo-soprano, accompanied by Christopher …
Hay Festival has its own blogger, Telegraph.co.uk
Read Virginia Woolf’s story ‘A Mark On The Wall’ for proof. Reader, I got a job. A dream of a job! The offer came from Literature Wales, formerly known as Academi, a beautiful institution run by wizards who love books and don’t seem to mind …
Behind the Beat: Horse Stories, Valley Advocate
These days she draws motivation from the likes of Catherine Ribeiro, Kim Gordon, Ally Harris, Virginia Woolf and “teenagers.” Kahn has been known to throw anything and everything into her work—even kitchen appliances—to complement Horsebladder’s core …
Save Ferris: Pop-Culture Origins Of 16 Famous Band Names, Houston Press (blog)
… on a speech-therapy exercise he was forced to repeat as a child, Brock actually chose the name “Modest Mouse” via a passage from Virginia Woolf’s “The Mark on the Wall,” rearranging words from the line “the minds of modest, mouse-colored people. …
Dear Book Lover: Critically Acclaimed but Almost Forgotten, Wall Street Journal Virginia Woolf called their work “a mixture of geniality and sentiment stuck together with a sticky slime of calf’s-foot jelly.” I don’t know about the calf’s-foot jelly, but I don’t mind the occasional geniality and sentiment. …
Artists profile, Calgary Herald
With a nod to Virginia Woolf’s essay, A Room of One’s Own, Toronto-based artist Virginia Mak offers a series of photographs that comment on the conditions required to engage in the creative process. …
Edna O’Brien’s Haunted at Sydney Opera House, StreetCorner
Her plays include A Pagan Place (Royal Court, London), Virginia (on the life and writings of Virginia Woolf at Haymarket, London), Iphigenia (Crucible, Sheffield), Our Father (Almeida, London), Family Butchers (Magic Theatre, San Francisco) and …
Dramatic Paws: JR Ackerley, The Independent
He persuaded many of the leading writers of the time to become regular contributors: Forster, Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Clive Bell, Wyndham Lewis, Kenneth Clark, Maynard Keynes, Geoffrey Grigson, Cecil Day Lewis, Louis MacNeice, …
crazy life of Gérard Depardieu, The Independent
But I also learnt a lot from female writers, like Virginia Woolf and Anaïs Nin. I prefer them to, say, Hemingway, and I would always prefer them. Although I very much like F Scott Fitzgerald, I would prefer Colette, for example. …
Cheeshahteaumauk, Class of ’65 (1665), Wall Street Journal
Her situation recalls that of the hypothetical sister that Virginia Woolf imagined for William Shakespeare in “A Room of One’s Own,” a brilliant woman denied education or self-expression. “Tend to your huswifery,” Bethia’s father tells her, …
How Writers Build the Brand, New York Times
The frumpy Virginia Woolf even went on a “Pretty Woman”-style shopping expedition at French couture houses in London with the magazine’s fashion editor in 1925. But the tradition of self-promotion predates the camera by millenniums. In 440 BC or so, …
Magical Messi leaves Mourinho’s Real reeling, American Chronicle
Thus wrote one of the great British writers of the 20th century, Virginia Woolf in her highly acclaimed ‘Mrs Dalloway’, but the same could well have been applied to football and the Champions League semifinal …
The Big Smoke comes to Aberystwyth, News Wales
The one woman play is inspired by the lives and works of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and American poet Anne Sexton, The show is performed by Canadian actor Amy Nostbakken and directed by Nir Paldi. An original and unforgettable piece of theatre, …
Classical Music/Opera Listings for April 29-May 5, New York Times
That organization is now bringing her to Merkin Hall with a terrifically varied program, including a Porpora aria, Mahler’s “Songs of a Wayfarer,” Ravel’s “Cinq Melodies Populaires Greques,” and Dominick Argento’s “From the Diary of Virginia Woolf. …
Rae Meadows’ ‘Mothers and Daughters’ a tender and perceptive tale, Madison.com
It’s no coincidence that Iris is reading Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse” as she prepares for her own death. Iris is in many ways a typical woman of her generation — divorced after raising two children in a passionless marriage. …
Kirstie Alley, have you called HBO yet?, SheKnows.com
We’re not quite sure what the adjective “Virginia Woolf” connotes, but we’re thinking something along the lines of “lesbians” and “high tea.” Juuust kidding — sort of. Woolf was a famous British writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries whom …
To The River by Olivia Laing, The Skinny
Skimming and deep-diving alternately into lives evermore bound by varying degrees to rivers, it also looks at the life of Virginia Woolf through her relationship with the river. With Woolf at the centre, Laing nurtures a theme of mental illness with …
Rabbit Hole, Cinema Blend
When we think of a movie about closed-in people, instinct often goes to a Virginia Woolf-like figure — a lonely person languorous in a walled room. John Cameron Mitchell’s Rabbit Hole is about closed-in people, but he chooses to begin his film in the …
Education calendar, GoErie.com
Corrine Egan will lead discussions on selections by Plato, James Baldwin, Virginia Woolf, TS Eliot,Jane Austen and others. The cost is $50 plus materials. Visit www.JESerie.org. – America’s most underrated president: James K. Polk, …
Creating the perfect space to fill with nothing,Irish Times
Roy Foster quotes Virginia Woolf describing Bowen’s Court as “merely a great stone box,” which happens to be a remarkably apt description of the houses that we find in English’s paintings. They are often monolithic edifices standing incongruously in …
Walking with Socrates, Canada.com
Those Toronto-based classes have grown; this summer, from July 17 to 22, Classical Pursuits will offer 11 sessions, accommodating 125 to 130 people, and covering everything from Chekhov and Virginia Woolf to “Vienna: World Capital of Classical Music. …
