Is the future of the book made from paper to be appreciated largely as a beautiful object, not necessarily destined to die out but to become a remote, old-fashioned, cultured cousin while more and more production is transferred to electronic format?
A new play performed by the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, features a superb portrayal of Lyndon Baines Johnson by Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston.
Steve Logan writes of his slight acquaintance with Seamus Heaney and his influence on him as a university teacher.
Rebecca Solnit remembers a time when the paper was delivered in the morning, you went to the pictures to see a film and Mom always had something good cooking in the kitchen.
Democracy and debate are all very well – in their place. But sometimes we should surely just listen to the advice of people who know more about these things than we do.
Publishers of course have always deprecated book censorship, but have they always fought it?
Some people thought the guys in the group, and particularly the drummer, had no rights at all and should play what, and wherever, and for as long as they were told. But Joseph Haydn rapped his bow and stood up to them.
James Moran offers his thoughts on the new Library of Birmingham, which opened earlier this month and which puts books and literary culture at the heart of England.
Franz Kafka died in an Austrian sanatorium from an incurable illness, aged forty, in 1924. Nothing could be done for him. There were some far more questionable deaths just up the road from there almost twenty years later.
One of Ireland’s greatest poets died fifty years ago today. So let’s make a bit of space for that too.