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- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Twelfth Night: or, What You Will
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- Reviews: Currents (2026)
- Reviews: Forge (2026)
- “Only the bad directors tell you how to read a line, how to define your character. The good ones let you do your job.” — Carroll Baker
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- Biff Dorsey on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
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Tag Archives: nonfiction
“I was a sinister child, lazy and cynical.” — Eve Babitz
“What I wanted, although at the time I didn’t understand what the thing was because no one ever tells you anything until you already know it, was everything. Or as much as I could get with what I had to … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged essays, Eve Babitz, fiction, nonfiction
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“Fear and the absence of hatred may go well together.” — Niccolò Machiavelli
Prologue, The Jew of Malta, by Christopher Marlowe, written in 1589. Machiavelli died in 1527. You can see his posthumous reputation had ballooned, just 60 years after his death. Enter MACHIAVEL. MACHIAVEL. Albeit the world think Machiavel is dead, Yet … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Christopher Marlowe, Italy, Machiavelli, nonfiction, politics, war
10 Comments
“Even though I’m writing about very dark material, it still feels like an escape hatch.” — Olivia Laing
“As a writer, I am always trying to get past abstraction, the world of ideas, and putting actual objects in my writing — paintings, photographs — really helps with that. They’re beautiful tools with which to think.” — Olivia Laing … Continue reading
“Ballet taught me to stay close to style and tone. Literature taught me to be concerned about the moral life.” — Joan Acocella
Joan Acocella, longtime dance critic for The New Yorker, and regular contributor to the New York Review of Books died in 2024 at the age of 78, and I did not mark her passing. It’s her birthday today. Acocella brought … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged ballet, Bob Fosse, dance, Dorothy Parker, essays, H.L. Mencken, Joan Acocella, Martha Graham, nonfiction, Nureyev, Primo Levi
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“Here’s to better times ahead and saying goodbye to bombs and bullets once and for all.” — Lyra McKee
Born on this day, investigative journalist Lyra McKee was shot and killed in Derry in 2019, during a standoff between police officers and dissident republicans. She was there as a journalist, covering the events. A masked person fired a shot … Continue reading
It’s the birthday of “The Woman Who Wouldn’t Forget”: Iris Chang
Iris Chang’s research into the atrocities committed by the Japanese on the Chinese people – particularly Chinese women – during the “rape of Nanking” in 1937 – much of it dug out of buried archives and brought to light for … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged China, Iris Chang, Japan, nonfiction, war, WWII
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“As an outsider I was free to pick my own literary traditions, to build my own system of literary values.” — Dubravka Ugrešić
“Retouching is our favourite artistic device. Each of us is a curator in his own museum…Uncover A, cover up B. Remove all spots. Keep your mouth shut. Think of your tongue as a weapon. Think one thing and say another. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Croatia, Dubravka Ugrešić, fiction, nonfiction, war, Yugoslavia
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“Silence is necessary to tyrants and occupiers, who take pains to have their actions accompanied by quiet.” — Ryszard Kapuściński
It’s the birthday today of one of my favorite writers, Polish journalist and author Ryszard Kapuściński. His death in 2007 was devastating to me. I went to the memorial tribute at the New York Public Library, hosted by his close … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Ethiopia, Iran, nonfiction, Poland, politics, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, war
7 Comments
2025 Books Read
I ended last year with a flurry of Oscar Wilde’s short stories, declaring I’d read all the plays in 2025. I mean, there were only five, sadly, due to the homophobic violence of his own society. I know these plays … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Austria, books read, Charles Lamb, children's books, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Czeslaw Milosz, David Lynch, Dubravka Ugrešić, England, essays, fiction, France, Frankenstein, Germany, Guillermo del Toro, Hungary, Ireland, Jane Austen, Janet Malcolm, John Keats, Lord Byron, Mark Danielewski, Mary Gaitskill, Mary Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Memoirs, nonfiction, Oscar Wilde, poetry, Poland, politics, Rebecca West, Roald Dahl, Robert Kaplan, Robert Louis Stevenson, Russia, sci-fi, Scotland, scripts, Spain, The Beatles, Twin Peaks, William Shakespeare, Yugoslavia
12 Comments
“Carelessness on the part of revolutionaries has always been the best aid the police have.” — Victor Serge
Ever since my late-in-the-day discovery of Victor Serge (whose birthday it is today), a man I should have discovered much MUCH earlier, considering my interest in totalitarian regimes / dissident voices / revolution / Russia – I have read as … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged fiction, Memoirs, nonfiction, Russia, Victor Serge, war
2 Comments