Yale Press Log

Shapiro blegs for the Freakonomics blog

Stephen J. Dubner of the New York Times' Freakonomics blog invited "blegs" from the readers--or, "questions that the Freakonomics readership could collectively answer well." The inaugural bleg--did Clint Eastwood's ever say "Read my lips"--was answered with the help of Yale Press' own Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the "wonderful" Yale Book of Quotations. Shapiro began by explaining the methodology of his work.

“Quotations research” is probably a new concept to most readers, but I have become one of the few people in the world who conducts extensive research about famous quotations. Even standard quotation books like Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations are based on surprisingly minimal research, but I set out eight years ago to create a new quotation book that would use state-of-the-art research methods — as well as extensive networking — to track down the accurate origins of well-known quotes.

Check back on the Freakonomics blog every Thursday to see Shapiro's future blegs.

This reader-friendly quotation book is unique in its focus on modern and American quotations.  It is also the first to use state-of-the-art research methods to capture famous quotations and to trace sources of quotations to their true origins.  It contains more than 12,000 entries not only from literary and historical sources but also from popular culture, sports, computers, politics, law, and the social sciences. With fascinating annotations, extensive cross-references, and a large keyword index, the book is a curious reader's delight.

Read the rest of the blog post, including a lively conversation in the comments section.

Panel at Yale in honor of Nuttall's Shakespeare the Thinker

Shakespeare's inner thought process will be the subject of a panel discussion held at Yale tomorrow, October 30. "Shakespeare the Thinker" will be at 4:30 p.m., in the Yale Center for British Art Lecture Hall, 1080 Chapel Street. The panel is free and open to the public.

Among the notable panelists are literary critic Harold Bloom and Connecticut Poet Laureate John Hollander. The event is hosted by Yale University Press, the Yale Center for British Art and the Whitney Humanities Center.

According to the Yale University Office of Public Affairs, the event was organized in honor of the late A. D. Nuttall and the recent publication of his book, Shakespeare the Thinker.

A. D. Nuttall’s study of Shakespeare’s intellectual preoccupations is a literary tour de force and comes to crown the distinguished career of a Shakespeare scholar. Certain questions engross Shakespeare from his early plays to the late romances: the nature of motive, cause, personal identity and relation, the proper status of imagination, ethics and subjectivity, language and its capacity to occlude and to communicate. Yet Shakespeare’s thought, Nuttall demonstrates, is anything but static. The plays keep returning to, modifying, and complicating his creative preoccupations. Nuttall allows us to hear and appreciate the emergent cathedral choir of play speaking to play. By the later stages of Nuttall’s book this choir is nearly overwhelming in its power and dimensions. The author does not limit discussion to moments of crucial intellection but gives himself ample space in which to get at the distinctive essence of each work.

Read an excerpt, or view the table of contents.

For more information about the panel discussion, click here or contact Manana Sikic at 203 432-0673.

Yale Press at the Oscars

Wondering what to do with your inner film buff now that the Oscars are over?

If you liked Steve Carrell’s portrayal of an aging Proust scholar in the award-winning movie Little Miss Sunshine, let us introduce you to William C. Carter, a real-life Proust scholar and author of Marcel Proust: A Life and Proust In Love. Carter himself hardly resembles his counterpart in the film, but that doesn’t stop him from enjoying it. When USA Today asked him what he thought of Little Miss Sunshine, Carter replied, “It’s a wonderful movie with a great ensemble cast. We could all use some sunshine.”

Fans of Gustavo Santaolalla’s Oscar-winning score for Babel might also enjoy Jack Sullivan’s book Hitchcock’s Music, which traces the long career of one of the most influential figures in the history of movie music. Michael Wood of Princeton University writes, “We might think Hitchcock needed music less than other filmmakers, but Jack Sullivan, in this lovingly researched and articulated book, shows he needed it more. Music said everything Hitchcock couldn't say, even in pictures, and Mr. Sullivan expertly proves that the master's every soundtrack tells an intricate and often romantic story.”

Finally, check out Maria DiBattista’s Fast-Talking Dames for a fascinating history of early motion-picture heroines. With vivid portraits of Katharine Hepburn, Irene Dunne, Rosalind Russell, Barbara Stanwyck, and others, DiBattista celebrates the sassy female leads that dominated the American screen in the 1930s and '40s. The Sunday Telegraph says, “This book overflows with so many superb come-backs and put-downs as almost to constitute an anthology of one-liners . . . captivating.”

More Praise for Hitchcock's Music

Hitchcock's Music was recently featured on the website of Austin, Texas radio station KUT 90.5.  In a blog entry for the show "Aelli Unleashed," host John Aelli wrote:

It is simply one of the most stimulating, informative, and insightful books I’ve read in a long while...Jack Sullivan makes this highly informative and well researched subject a compelling read. A wonderful exploration of the personalities involved.

Read the full entry here.

 

Hitchcock's Music

Writing in the New York Times about Jack Sullivan’s new book, Hitchcock’s Music, Edward Rothstein writes, “For Hitchcock music was not merely an accompaniment. It was a focus. And it didn’t just reveal something about the characters who sang the score’s songs or moved under its canopy of sound; music could seem to be a character itself . . . . [Sullivan] shows that it isn’t just that Hitchcock believed that sound should serve image; he believed that image should serve sound.”
Read the entire article here.