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Category Archives: reading
The Paper Garden
I have just uncovered that greatest of all delights, a book that runs so close to my vein that I look forward to going to bed at night so I can dip into it. The book is The Paper Garden: … Continue reading
Posted in Darwin, Einstein, making art, Mileva Maric, Molly Peacock, reading, Shadow Dancing, The Paper Garden, writing
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What was different about Einstein’s brain?
On Einstein’s death in 1955, his body was taken to an autopsy lab in Princeton, NJ. He had donated his brain to science, prior to the cremation of his body. There, Dr. Thomas Harvey removed his brain, then stole it. … Continue reading
Posted in Einstein, genius, reading
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The Business of Dowries
Most of what I knew about Jewish dowries, prior to researching the Einstein novel, came from the stories of Shalom Aleichem, via Tevye the milkman and Fiddler on the Roof. I extend my gratitude and acknowledgment to Marion Kaplan and … Continue reading
What is an alp?
It’s not a rocky peak in Switzerland, Italy, or France, or so I learn from a 1908 volume called Peep at Many Lands: Switzerland by John Finnemore (London: Adam and Charles Black). It’s one of those lovely old books, … Continue reading
Posted in Italy, reading, Research methods, Switzerland
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My Reading of Fictional Biographies
One of the ways writers make decisions is to read similar work by other authors. I have recently begun to check out fictional biographies from Dayton’s three library systems, to see how other writers have handled some of the problems. … Continue reading
The Wonders of Google Maps
I’ve written before about what a handicap it is to write about a setting I’ve never visited. I can read descriptions in books–and in the case of Albert Einstein, some of the biographers are fine writers who provide me with … Continue reading
German Jewish Family Values
Additional research–my thanks to Marion Kaplan for her book The Making of the Jewish Middle Class–reveals that as laws in Germany allowed Jews freedom to join the professions and become upwardly mobile, the German ideals of cleanliness entered the Jewish … Continue reading
Posted in Marion Kaplan, Mileva Maric, Pauline Einstein, reading, Research methods, Serbia, writing
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