If you’re ever near a sundial, step closer and look for a message. Many sundials bear haunting, poetic inscriptions about the brevity of life. Plus, language development in toddlers: why and how little ones pick up the exclamation Uh-oh! And a...
In the acclaimed podcast S-town, journalist Brian Reed notes that sundials often bear haunting inscriptions about the brevity of life and the passage of time. Some 1,682 of them are collected in The Book of Sun-Dials, originally published in 1872 by...
Novelist Charles Dickens and the musician Prince were very different types of artists, but they also had a lot in common. A new book chronicling their extraordinary careers becomes a larger meditation on perfectionism and creativity itself. Plus...
In one memorable passage from Nick Hornby’s book, Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius (Bookshop|Amazon), the author wrestles with the question of what factors come together to make someone a creative genius. This is part of a...
Paula in Cheyenne, Wyoming, calls with the story of a moving pilgrimage to the home of Willa Cather in Red Cloud, Nebraska, and shares a favorite passage from Cather’s My Antonia (Bookshop|Amazon). This is part of a complete episode.
There was a time when William Shakespeare was just another little seven-year-old in school. Classes in his day were demanding — and all in Latin. A new book argues that this rigorous curriculum actually nurtured the creativity that later flourished...