- In today's Washington Post, Michael Dirda reviews a new biography of John Donne; I'm passing this along without reading it, however, since I've got the book to review and don't want to contaminate my own judgement of it.
- Ed's review of The Friendship appeared in today's Philadelphia Inquirer; he's got a preview here.
- From NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, a neat interview with Colin Woodard, whose new book The Republic of Pirates is another one on my "to read" pile.
- And Paul Collins beats me to the punch about the story in today's Times outlining the potential rejection of Darwin's Origin of Species after an adviser to the publisher urged Murray to reject the book (he wanted Darwin to expand on some earlier work about pigeons, because, well, "everybody is interested in pigeons"). Collins puts the Cambridge Darwin Correspondence database to good use, quoting from Darwin's letter to Murray regarding the adviser's thoughts: "I have done my best. Others might, I have no doubt, done the job better, if they had my materials; but that is no help."
