Reads tagged with “Vladimir Nabokov”

Against Common Sense: Vladimir Nabokov on the Wellspring of Wonder and Why the Belief in Goodness Is a Moral Obligation
“This capacity to wonder at trifles — no matter the imminent peril — these asides of the spirit, these footnotes in the volume of life are the highest forms of consciousness, and it is in this childishly speculative state of mind, so different from commonsense and its logic, that we know the world to be good.”

The Encounter: How Young Vladimir Nabokov Met the Love of His Life and Won Her Heart with a Poem
“Longing, and mystery, and delight…”

The Paradox of Intellectual Promiscuity: Stephen Jay Gould on What Nabokov’s Butterfly Studies Reveal About the Unity of Creativity
“There is no science without fancy, and no art without facts.”

The Best Biographies, Memoirs, and History Books of 2014
Nabokov’s love letters, Shackleton’s courageous journey, the unsung heroes behind creative icons, Joni Mitchell unbound, and more.

A Lolitigation Lament: Nabokov on Censorship and Solidarity
“Could you visualize LOLITA as a little paperback being offered for sale on the newstands?”

Nabokov’s Synesthetic Alphabet: From the Weathered Wood of A to the Thundercloud of Z
“The long A of the English alphabet… has for me the tint of weathered wood, but a French A evokes polished ebony.”

A Questionnaire for the Immodest and Curious: Clever Puzzles, Riddles, and Word Games from Nabokov’s Love Letters to His Wife
“Kisses, my love, from your eyebrows down to your knees and back.”

Nabokov Gets Food Poisoning and Flees from the Hospital via Fire Escape: History’s Most Entertaining Account of “Homeric Retching”
“I returned to my microscope around two. Exactly at 2:30, I suddenly felt an urge to vomit, had barely time to run outside — and there it began.”

Vladimir Nabokov’s Passionate Love Letters to Véra and His Affectionate Bestiary of Nicknames for Her
“You are the only person I can talk with about the shade of a cloud, about the song of a thought…”

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