“We need more literary holidays. Right now we have Bloomsday, and that’s about it. As great as Ulysses may be, we’re missing out on plenty of other books that lend themselves to an annual celebration. For what it’s worth, I want to claim today (October 25) for readers. A lot of people don’t know it, but today is already a holiday — St. Crispin’s Day. In theory, it’s meant to honor a Christian martyr named Crispin, but for me the day belongs to William Shakespeare and his play Henry V.”
- Celebrating St. Crispin’s Day by Guy Patrick Cunningham
Tonight marks the beginning of Eid al-Adha, a three-day Muslim holiday. This year’s Hajj is being live streamed, so you can check it out from your own home no matter where you are. It really is an impressive, beautiful sight. Eid Mubarak!
Ploughshares has compiled an excellent list of books and songs to help you cope with seeing your family over the holidays. We’re thankful for it, and would add a few more: Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, Ann Beatie’s Chilly Scenes of Winter, Justin Torre’s We The Animals, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, and, of course, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which opens with the famous line: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Source: word.emerson.edu
