Winding Up the Week #475

An end of week recap “To read books seriously is to be staggered by the knowledge of how many more books will remain beyond your ken. It’s like looking up at the star-filled sky.” – James Fallows Fourth of July… 4th July… I’m sure something significant is meant to be happening today. Ahh yes, of course – it’s International Cherry Pit Spitting Day! How could I forget? And, incidentally, a very happy American Independence Day to those who celebrate. It is also Alice in Wonderland Day, marking the July afternoon in 1862 when Charles Dodgson (better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll) first spun Alice’s adventures for the Liddell sisters during a leisurely boat trip up the River Isis. Among those born on this day history are American novelist and short story writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804), Indian poet and novelist Nanak Singh (1897), leading American literary critic Lionel Trilling (1905), Austrian poet and novelist Christine Lavant (1915), Slovenian poet Tomaž Šalamun (1941), South…