Category: Biography

News and Notes The August 8 edition of the London Review of Books featured a magnificent Colm Tóibín appreciation of The Selected Letters of Anthony Hecht. Americans are living longer than ever, aided by ever-advancing life-saving medical technologies and treatments. Dr. Dan Morhaim, author of The Better End: Surviving (and Dying) on Your Own Terms in…

News and Notes Annette Lanjouw, co-author of Mountain Gorillas: Biology, Conservation, and Coexistence, was interviewed on NPR’s Science Friday during the SciFri Book Club about Dian Fossey’s Gorillas in the Mist. Daniel Webster, co-editor of Reducing Gun Violence in American: Informing Policy with Evidence and Analysis, was interviewed on Annapolis radio station WRNR 103.1. Hot…

Guest post by Bo Beolens The joy of researching our eponym dictionaries is coming across unsung heroes whose remarkable lives may end up commemorated in a critter’s name. Often the collective memory fades and it is left to later generations to rediscover these heroes. Such a fellow was Richard Lemon Lander (1804–1834)  (Lander's Horseshoe Bat…

By Brendan Coyne, exhibits and awards manager If you've been paying any attention at all to our political discourse in recent weeks you know that reproduction is a hot and controversial topic. From Susan G. Komen for the Cure to insuring contraception for women, uncomfortable questions about sex and power and religion have forced their…

To serious scholars, students, and aficionados of American poetry, Hart Crane needs no introduction. A controversial and troubled figure, Crane was born in 1899 to the inventor of Life Savers candy and killed himself in 1933 by jumping off a steamship into the Gulf of Mexico. His tragic and beautiful work profoundly influenced and inspired poets such as…

In case you weren’t aware, it’s Black History Month. We’ll leave aside the well-known and somewhat suspicious fact that the shortest month of the year is the one officially designated to understanding, recognizing, and honoring the long and troubled history of the relationship between blacks and whites in the United States and instead take this…

This weekend, we’re celebrating the birthdays of three great figures in history: Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, and Abraham Lincoln. Edison was born 165 years ago this Saturday, and Sunday marks the 203rd anniversary of the births of both Lincoln and Darwin. Did you know that Edison wasn’t the first to develop an incandescent light bulb?…

This weekend, we’re celebrating the birthdays of three great figures in history: Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, and Abraham Lincoln. Edison was born 165 years ago this Saturday, and Sunday marks the 203rd anniversary of the births of both Lincoln and Darwin. Did you know that Edison wasn’t the first to develop an incandescent light bulb?…

With Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin in American theaters for over a month now, in this country there is a renewed interest in all things Tintin, including the life and work of the creator of the comic, Georges Remi, better known as Hergé. Recent reviews in The New York Times, Washington Post, and elsewhere of the English-language translation…

by Becky Clark, Marketing Director Where were you in 2009? If you happened to be in a 7-Eleven, you might have come face-to-face with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The convenience store giant had partnered with Warner Brothers for a merchandising tie-in of Guy Ritchie’s blockbuster movie Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic characters…