[Editor’s note: this post was contributed by Joshua Garstka.] The Fall of the Stone CityIsmail Kadare (translated by John Hodgson)Grove Press, February 2013168 pages$23.00 Gjirokastër was not as wise as it should have been. Or perhaps it was wiser. It came to the same thing. Just before World War II, Gjirokastër, Albania, faced a revolving…
Back in December, before an afternoon showing of The Hobbit, I got my first glimpse of the trailer for the big budget adaptation of The Lone Ranger. Sitting there enjoying my smuggled in Diet Dr. Pepper was not the first time I’d run across the film—I had read some early reports on it over the…
It’s a digital age, but we’re still mad for paper! Even as readers embrace the connectivity and convenience offered by iPads and Kindles, there are still many good reasons to celebrate a book’s physicality. In Ploughshares’ Book Arts series, we’ll be looking at some of the artists, curators, and craftspeople who work to keep things…
For six seasons now, television viewers have been transfixed by advertising phenom Don Draper’s troubled smolder as he winds his way through Manhattan’s boardrooms, bedrooms, and bars. Each episode is loaded with literary jewels for writers to fawn over: the elegant use of space (that office elevator really knows how to open and close a…
On long car rides with my father, you could count on hearing three questions: What kind of cow is that? What kind of roof is that? Is the moon waxing or waning? My answers were always as follows: a Holstein, a mansard, and waxing? (I never did work out which was which.) Why these three questions among the…
Novelists have been using the suburbs as tender meat for skewering for nearly a century now. Longer, perhaps, if you consider a book like Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, the 1899 novel where we see most of the feelings of desperation and imprisonment that will grow, both in the real world of the suburbs and even…
The Books We Teach series will feature primary, secondary, and post-secondary educators and their thoughts about literature in the face of an evolving classroom. Posts will highlight literary innovations in teaching, contemporary literature’s place in pedagogy, and the books that writers teach. In the spirit of educational dynamism, we encourage readers to contribute their thoughts…
[Editor’s note: If your March Madness bracket got busted, never fear! You can now redeem yourself with our Fantasy Blog Draft Bracket! Starting June 11, our completed teams will be facing off against each other, with reader votes on Facebook determining the winners. We’ll score your picks at the end of the tournament and one…
My husband Noel and I rescued Sally, our 110 pound Leonburger, from a shelter in Lincoln, Nebraska a little over ten years ago. She was about a year old when we found her. At the time, we had just moved out of Lincoln to an old farmhouse on twenty acres. Our wheaten terrier, Finnegan (since…
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