On her blog today, Anita Silvey asks her “readers to weigh in with their list of five books that they can’t live without or the ones they read again and again.” So, first, let me encourage you to weigh in over on her blog. As soon as this post is up, I’ll do the same….
Often, media headlines highlight academic research in order to make fun of it – so that people can say, “look at how these eggheads spend their time!” or “They needed a study to prove that!?” Â My title (above) alludes to such media coverage, but my purpose here is to highlight a new article which argues……
Born 107 years ago today in Springfield Mass., Theodor Seuss Geisel had an extraordinarily prolific career. Â Most people know him for the 44 books he wrote and illustrated under the name “Dr. Seuss.” Â But that’s only part of his career. Â He wrote another 13 books under the name “Theo. LeSieg,” one book as “Rosetta Stone,”…
Following the deaths this month of Brian Jacques, Janet Schulman, and Margaret K. McElderry, we turn to the last words of those who wrote for the young – Seuss, Dahl, Thurber, Montgomery, Nesbit, Charles M. Schulz, Crockett Johnson, and others. “Yes. I’m not going to die tomorrow.” – Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904-1991) “Ow,…
Quick post from Amtrak heading north. Â On the way back from the Diane Rehm Show (now archived on website), I passed the person at right, who was selling copies of Street Sense and who kindly granted me this photograph. Â I always enjoy spotting signs of Seuss in the world. Â And, here, I suspect that Seuss…
A holiday classic for misanthropes: “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.”
This post is for my fellow intellectual laborers – be you academics, teachers, authors, artists, carpenters, curators, architects, doctors, plumbers, web designers, or… well, any job that requires you to use your noggin’. Â If you think about it (and people reading this blog probably do think about it), intellectual labor covers many jobs – you…
Film Score Monthly’s newly released 3-CD original motion picture soundtrack to The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953) is a must for fans of Dr. Seuss, composer Frederick Hollander, or the film itself. The rest of you might want to see the cult classic before purchasing. And, for the record, if you’ve any interest in…
Random House’s newly updated Seussville website – featuring my biography and timeline – recently went live. This is the first time I’ve written a piece for a corporation, but Dr. Seuss did it all the time. Though he published his first children’s book in 1937, he made his living through advertising … until the bestselling The…
Dr. Seuss‘s Green Eggs and Ham is one of the reasons I do this blog, write books, and am an English professor.  Nearly forty years ago, Green Eggs and Ham — which turns 50 this month — taught me to read.  It also taught me that reading is fun, helping to make me a life-long reader. The…
