Literary news and such

I really won't be posting much this week but I had a number of Google Alerts cluttering up my e-mail and I wanted to get rid of them, so here we are!

Charles Dickens

On "Household Words".

Spontaneous human combustion--that which is used to such effect in Bleak House. Seems they have a new theory. It's evidently aliens now. I am amused.

J.R.R. Tolkien

Offering information on the Tolkien Conference at the University of Vermont.

Personal ruminations which don't have that much to do with Tolkien. Here are the pertinent paragraphs:

Nothing could be further from my strengths, as I'm a lousy historian and documentarian. Attention to precision and detail has never ever been my forte. My talents lean in the opposite.

Epic, mythic in patterns and sweep. Perhaps I've more in common with J.R.R. Tolkien, the creator of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, whom coined the term mythopoeia, or myth-making.

I think she's a bit confused as Tolkien was obsessive about details and LotR is replete with them. Interesting post anyway, with which I somewhat agree although it's very New Age-y.

EDIT: Pardon me, I forgot. Last, but not least:

Elizabeth Gaskell

Review of North and South by Krakovianka.

According to this interview, the BBC is making a new Cranford. No confirmation from IMDb though.