Today Mike and I mashed together Rev War (for him) and #bookhistory (for me) around #Concord #Massachusetts. So, besides sites on Battle Road, we toured Louisa May #Alcott 's Orchard House, saw a repro of H. D. #Thoreau 's house on #Walden Pond, and the 1870s interior of Concord Free Library.

I am now listening to Shin Thief by Alcott #Alcott
https://www.last.fm/music/Alcott/_/Shin+Thief

I’d rather take coffee than compliments just now.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

The world's first known coffee house, Kiva Han, opened in Constantinople in 1475. Coffee Houses became known as 'Penny Universities', where a single copper coin could buy you a cup and an earful of intellectual debate.

#books #publishing #alcott #coffee

A lovely essay about #Alcott's #LittleWomen by #AnnNapolitano. https://lithub.com/parts-of-a-whole-ann-naploitano-on-reaching-for-the-vivacity-and-connection-of-little-women/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Lit%20Hub%20Daily:%20June%2012%2C%202023&utm_term=lithub_master_list
#litstudies, #bookstodon

A lovely essay about #Alcott's #LittleWomen by #AnnNapolitano. https://lithub.com/parts-of-a-whole-ann-naploitano-on-reaching-for-the-vivacity-and-connection-of-little-women/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Lit%20Hub%20Daily:%20June%2012%2C%202023&utm_term=lithub_master_list
#litstudies, #bookstodon

Wonderful meditation on Louisa May #Alcott - this is something my grad school friend circle took up in our writing in the late 90s/early 00s, tho w/o this author's language. It's why I teach #LittleWomen today: the novel invites readers to project themselves into worlds, ways of being that don't quite exist—if ever a book "made" readers gay/trans/queer/nonbinary, it's this one! https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/24/opinion/did-the-mother-of-young-adult-literature-identify-as-a-man.html

Here's something I bet they never taught you in school.

Louisa May #Alcott, the author of #Little #Women, the seminal text about girlhood, was a #trans man. Let's examine the evidence.

- Went by the name Lou
- wrote "I am more than half-persuaded that I am, by some freak of nature, a man’s soul put into a woman’s body.”
- referred to himself as a "gentleman"
- kids called him "papa"
- when he went to serve in the war as a nurse, his dad said he felt "like he was losing his only son".

Just listening to a discussion of Little Women on the Allusionist podcast. This thought came into my head again:

Louisa May Alcott grew up and lived in New England, where people famously say “Pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd.” Why, then, do American actors and scholars rhotacize the R in the name Marmee?

Would Alcott not have pronounced this to rhyme with “mommy”? Isn’t that what she meant? Mahmee?

#dialect #alcott #littlewomen #NewEngland #literature

#7Books
Off the top of my head. These may or may not help to know me, but they will usually be found on my bookcase
1. A Wrinkle In Time #MadeleineLEngle
2. Little Women #Alcott
3. Neuromancer /or/ Distrust That Particular Flavor (varies by week)#Gibson
4. People of the Book #Brookes
5. The Third Policeman #OBrien
6. The Good Earth #PearlSBuck
7. Danny Dunn & the Automatic House #Williams #Abrashkin
📚

Not literally #MyTopShelf -- more like the middle -- but this is the center of gravity, with #Alcott on the upper left, just a dab of #HenryJames because most of it's at home, and a long, uneven line of #Melville extending all the way to the edge.

#reading #books​ #academia