Book News: George Eliot’s Failure, Shakespeare Before the Globe

has been named the new U.S. Poet Laureate.

“Bradbury wouldn’t have made it today as a writer in New York; he was too rough, too raw, too tender.” Stephen Andrew Hiltner on fact-checking Ray Bradbury’s Paris Review interview.

Calligraphica: a new blog dedicated to fancy handwriting.

As Myanmar ends pre-publication censorship, Burmese authors prepare to bring suppressed works to light.

“If consistent ‘mastery’ requires playing it safe, perhaps we should actually consider failure part of, rather than a problem for, our standard of artistic greatness.” Rohan Maitzen on “Romola,” George Eliot’s biggest flop.

Archeologists unearth Shakespeare’s pre-Globe theater, which housed the first performances of “Romeo and Juliet” and “Henry V.”

A glimpse inside “Green Card Stories,” a book of photographs and essays about the modern immigrant experience.

In case proof was needed: a new study confirms that the bells and whistles of enhanced e-books hold children’s attention but don’t promote literacy.