A review of The First Word The Search for the Origins of Language by Christine Kenneally. Linguists seek a time when we spoke as one: A controversial research project is trying to trace all human language to a common root. A sampling of the strange, unexpected shapes that English takes around the world: A review of Rotten English: A Literary Anthology. Ariadne's thread: Thousands of literary texts are now available online, all submitted by volunteers. Is this the most enlightened initiative since English studies was invented? Lost in the blogosphere: Why literary blogging won't save our literary culture. 

From The New Yorker, Louis Menand on the biography business: A review of Shoot the Widow by Merlye Secrest and Biography: A Brief History by Nigel Hamilton. As he set out, albeit unwittingly, to change the literary

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