Here’s a photo of the panel I chaired at the 2013 Blackfriars Conference on Shakespeare in lovely Staunton Virginia. What a wonderful group of scholars!

Panel for Shakepseare’s Sources and Adaptations

Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley is an underrated book.  Maybe because it opens with a flutter instead of a bang, people never get past the early pages.  But what a read, if you carry on!  She’s all about the imperfections in us…which make us so perfect.  And, come to think of it, that’s like this novel itself: perfect in its imperfections.  (BTW – don’t you love Charlotte’s crooked smile in this 1850 portrait by George Richmond?)

Looking for some summer reading?  Kenneth Grahame’s original 1908 The Wind in the Willows has often been mistaken as children’s literature when, in fact, it is an idyll that fulfills the longing in all of us for a more peaceful, simple life in harmony with nature.  Come join us for an informal evening discussion of this longtime favorite at the Mingei International Museum on August 8th.

Here’s something fun going on at the international museum of folk art in Balboa Park, the Mingei.  Please join us, if you can!