Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Latest Hemingway column from Star's archives finds the great man reporting on the arrival of craps in Toronto society. If you've ever walked past a casino table and wondered what the hell was going on, now's your chance to find out
More fine stuff from the Star's Hemingway project. "Toronto women were present at prizefights for the first time last Saturday night... 'My, that one was over quickly!' said one of the women back of me, with obvious disappointment'"
Captivating review of Laurent Binet's new historical novel "HHhH", about rise and fall of Reinhard Heydrich. SS intelligence chief known as "Himmler's brain". Planned Kristallnacht, convened infamous Wannsee Conference. Assassinated
"Bahrain has become a symbol of the failure of the Arab Spring to deliver real democracy and freedom. What is hardly ever mentioned is that this very system of oppression in Bahrain was largely created by the British"
This republished piece, from 1920, sees Hemingway observe the behaviour of Toronto's opportunistic mayor at a local boxing bout. More great stuff from the Toronto Star's new Hemingway Papers project
Former New Yorker writer excavates history of 44th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, home for many years of his former magazine and "bastions of the old East Coast Wasp imperium" such as the Algonquin and Harvard Club
"A massive ball of fire was rushing towards him at high speed. Within seconds, he would be engulfed by the flames." Short, gripping account of how 14 year old Werner Franz managed to escape most spectacular air disaster in history
Not to say much of its territory—about half of it in the 200 years since independence, owing to a concatenation of ill-judged treaties and small wars embarked upon by "a seemingly interminable procession of tin-pot dictators"
"Just like Britain before 1929, Europe’s Periphery was being secretly buffeted by a slow-burning recession well before 2008. Labouring under an overvalued currency, their industries were being depleted in exchange for phoney growth"
A typically weird and wonderful Curtis blogpost, lavishly illustrated with video and all but uncategorisable. Here is your chance to discover the links between yoga, Barbara Cartland, and the modern history of Iraq
George Dyson, son of physicist Freeman, discusses origins of the computer. Key figures were Turing, von Neumann and Bigelow. "The hardware came out of the mud of World War II, and the code fell out of abstract mathematical concepts"
Extraordinary story of 1933 murder of New York street-bum Mike Malloy. Conspirators first insured his life, then fed him wood alcohol to finish him off. But the hardy Irishman wouldn't go easily, no matter what his murderers tried
Image by premieroctobre on Flickr
