Nov 30, 2011

Midweek Notes

by Cliopatria

Nominations for the Cliopatria Awards, 20ll are still open. Until midnight est tonight, you can nominate candidates for Best Group Blog, Best Individual Blog, Best New Blog, Best Post, Best Series of Posts, and Best Writer. This year, for the first time, there are Awards for Best Twitter Feed and Best Podcast Episode.

Benny Morris, "Somewhere, beyond the Sea," National Interest, Nov/Dec, reviews David Abulafia's The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean.

Hillary Kelly, "The Voyage In," The Book, 30 November, reviews Alexandra Harris's Virginia Woolf.

Jennifer Szalai, "Mac the Knife: On Dwight MacDonald," Nation, 21 November, and Scott McLemee, "Masscult Studies," IHE, 30 November, review Dwight MacDonald's Masscult and Midcult: Essays Against the American Grain, ed. by John Summers.

Liesl Schillinger, "Hedy Lamarr Biography," Daily Beast, 21 November, and Sam Kean, "The Inventor in Hollywood," Slate, 28 November, review Richard Rhodes's Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World.

Christopher Buckley, "How It Went," NYT, 25 November, and Wendy Smith, "Kurt Vonnegut Biography Reveals an Unhappy and Nasty Writer," Daily Beast, 29 November, review Charles J. Shields's And So It Goes. Kurt Vonnegut: A Life.

Finally, farewell to Sarah Hammond, a brilliant young historian of religion in America. There's more information here.