Sunday Notes

FIRE gives its speech code of the month award to Ohio State and rates it code red. One of the first things Gordon Gee ought to do when he returns to OSU, Mark, is have his legal counsel make sure the University isn't enforcing unconstitutional code.

David Oshinsky,"No thanks, Mr. Nabokov," NYT, 9 September, looks at manuscript reviews in the Alfred A. Knopf archive at the University of Texas. If you've never wanted to strangle an editor or a peer-reviewer, it's probably because you've never submitted anything. If it's any comfort, you're not alone. Oshinsky offers up Knopf's rejections of work by James Baldwin, Jorge Luis Borges, Pearl Buck, Anne Frank, John Hope Franklin, Michael Kammen, Jack Kerouac, Vladimir Nabokov, Anaïs Nin, George Orwell, R. R. Palmer, Sylvia Plath, J. H. Plumb, Mordecai Richler, Jean-Paul Sartre, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Kenneth Stampp, A. J. P. Taylor, Barbara Tuchman, T. Harry Williams, and William Appleman Williams. There are also gems of notes to unnamed historians. I want those names, David!

The Washington Post previews a list of the most anticipated books in history for the fall (scroll down, 2-3).

Michael Dirda,"A Prize-Winning Scholar Explores the Hidden History of Women," Washington Post, 9 September, reviews Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History.

D. T. Max,"Antonina's List," NYT, 9 September, reviews Diane Ackerman's The Zookeeper's Wife.