Rambling Readers

Project Gutenberg

How an Obscure German Noblewoman Influenced the Way Anne Frank Wrote Her Diary

Biographer Ruth Franklin on the Value of a Careful Eye and Fresh Perspective

https://lithub.com/how-an-obscure-german-noblewoman-influenced-the-way-anne-frank-wrote-her-diary/

The last known photograph of Anne taken in May 1942, taken at a passport photo shoot. (Photo collection Anne Frank House, Amsterdam. Public Domain Work)]

Assoc for Scottish Literature replied to Assoc for Scottish Literature's status

“Cutler performed on the opening night of BBC Two, recorded more John Peel sessions than any other act except The Fall, played Buster Bloodvessel in The Beatles’ A Magical Mystery Tour and was, according to Peel, the first performer to appear on Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4.”

—Bruce Lindsay answers ten questions on his biography of Ivor Cutler

3/7

https://theartsdesk.com/books/10-questions-bruce-lindsay-biographer-ivor-cutler

#Scottish #literature #poetry #humour #humor #surrealism #absurdist #IvorCutler #biography

Assoc for Scottish Literature replied to Assoc for Scottish Literature's status

When the Worst Man in the World Writes a Masterpiece

“The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. was an instant sensation. While the works of Johnson were quickly forgotten, his biography has never been out of print… It went through 41 editions just in the 19th century.”

5/5

https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/10/22/when-the-worst-man-in-the-world-writes-a-masterpiece/

#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson

Assoc for Scottish Literature replied to Assoc for Scottish Literature's status

“In his excitement at the prospect of the examined life Boswell invented modern biography.”

—Andrew O’Hagan’s celebration of James Boswell, London Review of Books, 5 Oct 2000

4/5

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n19/andrew-o-hagan/self-hugging

#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson

Boswell’s way of talking about himself can seem to us very modern: pre-Freud and pre-tabloid, he talks in a shockingly open way about the nature of his own (and other people’s) desires, affections, tribulations and thoughts of death. He also suggests the quality of his own delight. He is a self-watcher and a self-hugger. And his way of looking at other people – including Johnson – reveals him to be a harbinger of the documentary techniques and psychological modes of enquiry we now take for granted. In his excitement at the prospect of the examined life Boswell invented modern biography. He wrote like hell, and the full fragrance, the authentic buzz, of his own life and period, such as it was, rises with Flemish exactness from every other sentence he chose to write down.

Assoc for Scottish Literature replied to Assoc for Scottish Literature's status

“A fool can utter a brilliant sentence but it seems quite rare for a fool to be able to write an admirable biography of seven or eight hundred pages…”

Jorge Luis Borges asks, Was Boswell just an idiot who had the good fortune to meet Johnson & write his biography? Or is this “Samuel Johnson” actually a brilliant dramatic character created by Boswell?

3/5

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2013/07/28/lecture-johnson-and-boswell/

#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson #Borges #JorgeLuisBorges

Assoc for Scottish Literature replied to Assoc for Scottish Literature's status

“While in Rome, Boswell posed for a painting […] Above him, an owl perched absurdly on a branch. Somehow the painter captured the mixture of silliness and self-importance that made Boswell so engaging.”

(National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh)

2/5

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/1865/james-boswell-1740-1795-diarist-and-biographer-dr-samuel-johnson

#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson

A portrait of James Boswell, painted by George Willison (1741–1797). Boswell sits side-on at the foot of a large tree, his head turned to the left to regard the viewer with a humorous expression. A young man, slightly plump in the face, he is wearing a large green fur-trimmed cape over a red waistcoat with gold frogging, red breeches (also with details picked out in gold) and white stockings, and a black silk cravat. His left leg is folded over his right and he carries a black tricorn hat casually in his left hand. A yellow-eyed, somewhat angry-looking owl is perched on a branch above him.

Assoc for Scottish Literature

James Boswell (1740–1795) – a man for whom the word “scapegrace” might have been invented – was born #OTD, 29 Oct.

A Happy Bozzy Birthday thread

1/5

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/james-boswells-scotland-106667503/

#Scottish #literature #biography #JamesBoswell #18thcentury #SamuelJohnson

Early on, James had served notice that he was not cut out to follow in his father’s strait-laced footsteps. Scots are well known for being torn between dour conformity and impetuous rebelliousness, a contradiction emphatically personified by Boswell father and son. When James was 18, he developed a passion for the theater and fell for an actress a good ten years older. After Lord Auchinleck banished him to the University of Glasgow, Boswell, still under the spell of his Catholic mistress, decided to convert—tantamount to career suicide in Presbyterian Scotland—and ran away to London. There he lost interest in Catholicism, caught a venereal disease and decided he wanted to be a soldier.

earthling

The Elements of Marie Curie How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science by Dava Sobel, 2024

The acclaimed Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Galileo's Daughter crafts a luminous chronicle of the life and work of the most famous woman in the history of science, and the untold story of the many young women trained in her laboratory who were launched into stellar scientific careers of their own.

@bookstodon
#books
#nonfiction
#biography
#women
#science
#Skłodowska

"Even now, nearly a century after her death, Marie Curie remains the only female scientist most people can name," writes Dava Sobel at the opening of her shining portrait of the sole Nobel laureate decorated in two separate fields of science—Physics in 1903 with her husband Pierre and Chemistry by herself in 1911. And yet, Sobel makes clear, as brilliant and creative as she was in the laboratory, Marie Curie was equally passionate outside it. Grieving Pierre's untimely death in 1906, she took his place as professor of physics at the Sorbonne; devotedly raised two brilliant daughters...

Project Gutenberg replied to Project Gutenberg's status

French writer André Maurois wrote a memorable biography on Shelley's life:

Ariel, ou La vie de Shelley, Paris: Grasset, 1923; English translation: Ariel: The Life of Shelley, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1924 (translated by Ella D'Arcy)

French version at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59781

English version at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64118

#books #literature #biography

Dr. Zalka Csenge Virág replied to Dr. Zalka Csenge Virág's status

10. Addiction

Repülős Gizi, a tolvajok királynője (Bodnár Gizella)
[Flying Gizi, Queen of Thieves]

The autobiography of the famous Hungarian thief Bodnár Gizella (Flying Gizi). An honest and fascinating read about addiction, living through the entire 20th century as a woman, struggles, poverty, and life in prison. Being a talented thief is the least memorable thing about this woman's story.

https://www.libri.hu/konyv/Repulos-Gizi-A-tolvajok-kiralynoje-16.html

#nonfiction #books #bookstodon #Hungarian #crime #biography

Dr. Zalka Csenge Virág

People I would like to read biographies about and no one has written them yet:

Willy Clarkson
Bunny Roger
Ynés Mexia
Dr. Anandabai Joshee, Dr. Kei Okami & Dr. Tabat M. Islambooly

#books #biography #history #nonfiction

Assoc for Scottish Literature replied to Assoc for Scottish Literature's status

The Many Lives of James Boswell

From 2022: Terry Seymour’s talk for the Edinburgh Bibliographic Society, discussing his extraordinary collection of books, papers, & artworks identified with James Boswell – including private papers, family portraits, personal books, & more first editions of Boswell’s Life of Johnson than in any library in the world, except for Harvard.

#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury
4/4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSE-cbLmbTM

Assoc for Scottish Literature replied to Assoc for Scottish Literature's status

Was Boswell just an idiot who had the good fortune to meet Johnson and write his biography? Or is this “Samuel Johnson” actually a brilliant dramatic character created by Boswell?

Read Jorge Luis Borges’ “A Lecture on Johnson & Boswell”, in the New York Review of Books

#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury #Borges
3/4
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2013/07/28/lecture-johnson-and-boswell/

Assoc for Scottish Literature replied to Assoc for Scottish Literature's status

“The Life of Samuel Johnson was an instant sensation. While the works of Johnson were quickly forgotten, his biography has never been out of print”

—When the Worst Man in the World Writes a Masterpiece: James Boswell & the nature of genius

#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury
2/4
https://fantasticanachronism.com/2020/10/22/when-the-worst-man-in-the-world-writes-a-masterpiece/

Assoc for Scottish Literature

—“Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.”
—“That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.”

May 16 is Biographers Day – marking the 1st meeting of James Boswell & Samuel Johnson in 1763

#Scottish #literature #biography #SamuelJohnson #JamesBoswell #18thCentury
@bookstodon
1/4
https://lithub.com/of-course-samuel-johnson-met-james-boswell-in-a-bookstore/