I’m halfway through Kenneth McGoogan’s excellent biography of John Rae, “Fatal Passage: The Story of John Rae, the Arctic Hero Time Forgot.” I love a good story about a forgotten scientific explorer, and McGoogan’s energetic and dramatic book has so far made a strong case for remembering Rae as a polar pioneer—not as the guy …
Read more ““Fatal Passage:” Arctic Explorer John Rae and the Fate of Sir John Franklin”
Ron Howard directs the true story of the whaling disaster that inspired Moby-Dick The Mystic Seaport Museum recently revealed that filming for the motion picture adaptation of In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex is underway in London. Oscar-winning director Ron Howard (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Frost/Nixon) is helming …
Read more ““In the Heart of the Sea” Becomes a Heart-Pounding Film”
Is it OK that I find this alarming? The Library of Congress has announced its acquisition of a version of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, Or The Whale completely translated into emojis. Yes, those smartphone-friendly pictographs of happy faces, hearts, cupcakes and, perhaps in this case, Physeter macrocephalus. According to the LOC, a data engineer named Fred …
New year, new books on my reading list—some released a few years ago, others hot off the press. I’m so excited to read these works, which all explore some aspect of historical exploration, discovery and philosophical challenge. Basically, if the title of the book is followed by a colon and then three nouns separated by …
Read more “2013 Reading List: Natural History, Exploration and Beavers”
I wrote a hybrid book review-slash-historical analysis of Edmund White’s recent book, City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and ’70s, for the Gay and Lesbian Review. Though White’s memoir covers many topics in his peripatetic existence between in the ’60s and ’70s, I focused on his first-hand experiences in New York’s …
Read more “Hot Child in the City: A new piece in the Gay and Lesbian Review”