Notes from the wrong shelf
Dispatches on books, music, movies, questionable cultural developments, history and whatever else refuses to stay in its assigned category.
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The Business Trip
In the film, a father’s arrest is disguised from his young son as a “business trip.” In my own family, the euphemism wasn’t far off — an uncle who told…
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A Tunnel Through the Black Death
A haunting medieval odyssey carries villagers from the Black Death into a modern world they could never have imagined.
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50 Beatles Covers You Need to Hear Now
Fifty Beatles songs, fifty unexpected interpretations—from soul and punk to jazz, power pop, and everything in between.
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He Didn’t Even Know What Grant Looked Like
When Robert E. Lee rode up to Appomattox Courthouse to surrender, he didn’t even know what Ulysses S. Grant looked like. Grant recognized him instantly. What happened between them that…
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The Man Who Might Be Jim
Twain didn’t write the hardest word in American literature by accident — leaving it out would have been like leaving water out of a description of the Pacific Ocean. But…
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It Came Out Of Liverpool: The Wit and Wisdom of the Beatles
Liverpool ran on wit the way other port towns ran on rum — a hard, dead-end place where you were judged by how sharp your comeback was. The Beatles were…