The Monstrosity Gazette: A weekly smattering of all things literary...

Bookish Quote of the Day:

 

"The multitude of books is making us ignorant."

-Voltaire 

---

Today in Literary History...

 

On this day in 1854, one of the most famous battles of military history was fought at Balaclava, in the Crimea. Upon reading reports of the disaster in the Times five weeks later, Tennyson wrote "The Charge of the Light Brigade," composing the poem while raking leaves, he later said, and taking both the phrase and the idea that "someone had blundered" from the newspaper account.

For more literary history, click here.

---

Literary Pic of the Day:

The British Museum Reading Room, situated in the center of the Great Court of the British Museum, used to be the main reading room of the British Library. In 1997, this function moved to the new British Library building at St Pancras, London, but the Reading Room remains in its original form.

---

New Book On My Radar:

The Pattern in the Carpet by Margaret Drabble

Published Sep. 2009

368 pages

Summary in a Sentence:

Margaret Drabble, an English novelist, describes spending time as a child with her aunt in Long Bennington and her life-long fondness for jigsaw puzzles, along with her thoughts on the importance of childhood play, art, writing, aging, and memory.