Originally posted on ACADEME BLOG:
Ball, John.  In the Heat of the Night.  New York: Harper, 1965. John Ball’s most memorable creation, the African-American police detective Virgil Tibbs, was the protagonist of six novels and five films, most of which were not based on Ball’s novels.  In the Heat of the Night, the first novel…

Originally posted on ACADEME BLOG:
Today, the Academy of American Poets distributed the e. e. cummings poem “my father moved through dooms of love” as its poem-a-day daily e-mail. Here are the opening stanzas of this poem, which becomes more comprehensible, I think, as we ourselves age, as our fathers pass away, and as they…

Originally posted on ACADEME BLOG:
Or are our florists trying just a little too hard to transform every day into an occasion on which to give flowers? ? ? ? ? ?

Originally posted on ACADEME BLOG:
Wister, Owen.  The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains.  New York: Macmillan, 1902. Born into an affluent Eastern family, Owen Wister had a varied and successful literary career, producing novels, short fiction, plays, poetry, essays, and nonfiction books.  Today, however, he is best known for one novel, The Virginian, which…