Crockett Johnson’s FBI File. Part 1.

On April 21, 1950, the FBI’s New York Division reported that Crockett Johnson was one of “400 concealed Communists.”  In June, the New Haven office began compiling a file on him.  These are the first 15 pages.  (Clicking on each page will yield a larger image.) This (above) is one of the less accurate pages

Book People Unite

This is fun.  Reading Is Fundamental‘s new promotional video features a song by the Roots; vocals by  Jack Black, Chris Martin (Coldplay), John Legend, Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Jason Schwartzman, Nate Ruess (vocalist for fun.), Melanie Fiona, Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney, Wild Flag), Regina Spektor and Consequence; appearances from Pinocchio, Madeline, Greg (the Wimpy Kid),

Research, Writing, and Getting a Life

One of the many pleasures of Edmund de Waal’s The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance (2010) is its evocation of the thrill of research. As he traces the history of his family’s netsuke (small Japanese ivory and wood carvings), de Waal describes great-great-great grandfather Charles Ephrussi’s art-collecting in nineteenth-century Paris as “‘vagabonding’ … done with