This morning, we spotted a few gorgeous photographs of Coco Chanel’s book-filled salon over at Book Patrol, and it got us to thinking about that much-romanticized, often revived tradition of thinkers from centuries past: the literary salon. For your daydreaming pleasure, we’ve collected a few paintings and photographs of famous literary salons from the 1600s to the 1970s. … Read More
voltaire
Awesome Infographic: Six Degrees of Inspiration, Voltaire to Moby
The excellent Longshot magazine, whose staff you’ll recognize from their day jobs at places like Gawker and The Awl, has just published its second issue. The depressingly appropriate theme is debt — and not just the financial kind. Michelle Legro, Maria Popova, and illustrator Wendy MacNaughton contributed the “Circles of Influence” map above,… Read More
10 Authors Against Adjectives
Long considered the scourge of good writing, the adjective recently got another public flogging by Alexander McCall Smith in this Wall Street Journal article. Sure, most college students are guilty of inserting redundant, Thesaurus-aided descriptions to reach an essay’s minimum word count, but everyone from Voltaire to Steven King has agreed upon the danger of overusing this seductive part of speech. Although we’re not suggesting that linguistic minimalism should be the gold standard, it’s well-worth heeding the anti-adjective advice of these literary greats. … Read More
NYPL President Paul LeClerc Talks Voltaire
“Your nature is to do evil; mine is to love the truth and publish it despite you.” This entry is from Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary, under the entry on Fate. On the 250th anniversary of the publication of Candide, Voltaire’s masterpiece attacking the philosophical doctrine of Optimism made popular by writers like Alexander Pope and Gottfried Leibniz, the New York Public Library has organized Candide at 250: Scandal and Success, examining the many forms and legacies of this bold, satirical… Read More
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