Friday's Notes

The Biblical Studies Carnival XLVI is up at Hebrew and Greek Reader; Giant's Shoulders #16, the history of science carnival, is up at Quiche Moraine; the Indian History Carnival #22 is up at varnam; and the History is Ephemeral Carnival, 6th edition, is up at Kitsch Slapped.

The National Book Award nominees were announced yesterday. In Nonfiction, they include: Adrienne Mayor's The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy, T. J. Stiles's The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Greg Grandin's Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City.

John Bowen,"Day-to-day Dickens," TLS, 14 October, reviews Michael Slater's Charles Dickens.

Dwight Garner,"America's War, British View," NYT, 15 October, reviews John Keegan's The American Civil War: A Military History.

Luke Harding,"Russian historian arrested in clampdown on Stalin era," Guardian, 15 October, reports the arrest of Mikhail Suprun, who is doing research on German prisoners in the Arctic gulags.

Robert Draper,"Barack Obama's Work in Progress," GQ, November, argues that the President is, first, a writer.