Jonathan Swift

Mud Baron, an evangelical force in school gardens

2012-04-19 16:36:48

<![CDATA[Mud Baron, an evangelical force in school gardens]]>

Book review: 'In Other Worlds' by Margaret Atwood

2011-11-27 00:00:00

In Other Worlds SF and the Human Imagination Margaret Atwood Nan A. Talese/Doubleday: 259 pp., $24.95 Great fiction writers are usually better at showing than at telling. Sometimes, though, the job of explaining their creative choices is thrust on...

Unpredictable, serendipitous Tasmania

2010-02-14 00:00:00

Only toward dawn did the sea begin to calm. I rose from my berth and glanced out the window. The setting moon cast a broad light on the rolling waters of the Bass Strait, and in the distance, the lights of Tasmania began to dot the darkness. We had...

Discoveries

2011-04-03 00:00:00

The Paper Garden An Artist Begins Her Life's Work at 72 Molly Peacock Bloomsbury: 416 pp., $30 Mary Delany was born in 1700 to an upper-class family in England that would fall out of favor with the court and use its lovely young daughter, as so many...

Movie projector: 'Little Fockers' to top Christmas weekend; 'True Grit' looking strong; 'Gulliver's Travels' will struggle

2010-12-23 16:33:07

Box office: 'Little Fockers' big but littler than its predecessor; 'True Grit' strong second; 'Gulliver's Travels' flops [Updated]

2010-12-26 16:32:43

Will the Honorable Gentleman please shut his yap?

2009-09-17 08:54:10

A modest proposal for fiscal misery: Make them hurt in Brentwood and beyond

2009-06-10 00:00:00

We're in a bind here in California, mates, in case you hadn't noticed. The till is tapped, the budget deficit is bigger than the great outdoors, and lately even the sun has disappeared. What's crystal clear is that the governor can't fix this mess. His...

Dublin, beyond the Blooms

2005-08-28 00:00:00

THE notion of a holiday built around literature is a contradiction, which makes Dublin the right destination for those inclined toward the literary life. Travel, after all, is about going and doing. The consolations of reading are solitary; even the...

Coulter's a satirist -- really?

2006-06-24 00:00:00

LIFE IS HARD for satirists. Like high school poets or people who get aroused when they put on furry mascot costumes, no one understands them. Back in 1729, Jonathan Swift was almost universally reviled when he suggested, in "A Modest Proposal," that the...

A Word, Please: The reason why is historical

2012-07-27 19:47:02

In a 1974 edition of the journal College English, 70% of university teaching assistants surveyed said they marked "the reason why" as an error on students' papers. That's a lot of red ink. The phrase "the reason why" is extremely common, especially in...

VOD Spotlight: Classic tales inspire “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island”

2012-06-05 16:32:49

It's a contemporary update of Jonathan Swift's classic adventure novel, but more kid-friendly and less satirical. Jack Black plays an ineffectual travel writer who sets sail only to get shipwrecked and wake up in Liliput, which is inhabited by tiny people.

2010-11-12 12:07:38