The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of the Modern World, by Selena Wisnom (University of Chicago Press): From the Library of Alexandria to the pages of Fahrenheit 451, book-burning has long been the stuff of catastrophe. But when the ancient city of Nineveh was razed in 612 B.C., it was a conflagration that saved the great library of the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, firing and hardening tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets while the walls fell in around them. In The Library of Ancient Wisdom, the Assyriologist Selena Wisnom offers a lively tour of what H. G. Wells called “the most precious source of historical material in the world,” discussing the library’s millennia-old provenance, the extraordinary ambition of its creator, the variety of its holdings (from business records to epic literature, mathematics to divination), the literary culture in which it emerged, and more. —RE
Thomas Becket and His World, by Michael Staunton (Reaktion Books): “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” These are the words of Henry II of England, the story goes, referring to Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1170. Whatever his actual words were, they were taken as an order, and Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral just days later. But with Becket martyred, then canonized, and chosen as a subject by at least thirteen contemporary biographers, Henry never was rid of that turbulent priest. Now, Michael Staunton has made a latter-day entry into the veritable library of Saint Thomas of Canterbury biographies with his Thomas Becket and His World, out from Reaktion Books. —SM
Met Expert Talks at The Met Cloisters—The Medieval Garden (May 9, 16, 23, 30): According to the Old English Nigon Wyrta Galdor (Nine Herbs Spell), mugwort does the following: “You defeat three, you defeat thirty,/ you defeat venom, you defeat air-illness;/ you defeat the horror who stalks the land.” Perhaps not the cheeriest paean, but a good indication of the role of herbs and plants in premodern society. Visitors can further explore the topic every Friday in May, with guided walks at the Metropolitan Museum’s Cloisters, where an expert will demonstrate “how medieval people utilized plants for sustenance, both earthly and spiritual.” —BR
“Rob de Oude: Rhyme and Repeat,” at McKenzie Fine Art, New York (through May 11): “Never a day without a line,” said Pliny the Elder. The same might be said of Rob de Oude, a painter who tests the limits of line through his linear applications of oil on canvas. “Rhyme and Repeat,” de Oude’s latest exhibition, is now in its final week at McKenzie Fine Art on the Lower East Side. Using subtle gradations of color, value, and tone to give his grids their luminosity, de Oude has recently departed from the purely rectilinear to explore more dynamic forms. The distortions give his compositions a new sense of movement while still conveying their light and air. —JP
Podcast:
“Music for a While #101: A Frenchman’s birthday, etc.” Jay Nordlinger, music critic of The New Criterion, talks music—but, more important, plays music.
Dispatch:
“Stemme in recital,” by Jay Nordlinger. On an appearance by Nina Stemme, the Swedish soprano, in Carnegie Hall.
By the Editors:
“The Politicized Mind: How the University Lost Its Way”
Roger Kimball, American Greatness
From the Archives:
“Life sentences: the art of Joseph Conrad,” by Joseph Epstein (June 1994). On Joseph Conrad’s achievements.
