Literature – Brewminate: A Bold Blend of News and Ideas

Beyond Ledgers: Reading Material for Medieval London Craftsfolk and Merchants

Matthew McIntosh — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:56:06 +0000

Wills made medieval merchants seem narrowly devotional, but inventories and manuscripts reveal Londoners reading literature, chronicles, practical guides,

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Reading Online Feels Private. Who Can Actually See What You Read?

Matthew McIntosh — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 15:08:48 +0000

You can read an argument without agreeing with it. That is part of what reading is for. Suppose

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When Dickens Died: A Secret Westminster Abbey Funeral for Britain’s National Storyteller

Matthew McIntosh — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 14:08:16 +0000

Dickens asked for a private burial near Gad’s Hill, but a secret service in Westminster Abbey turned his

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The Night of Union: Rumi’s Death and the Funeral That Crossed Religious Boundaries

Matthew McIntosh — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 15:24:23 +0000

When Rumi died in Konya in 1273, Muslims, Christians, and Jews reportedly joined his funeral. His followers transformed

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A Roman Room Misread for Decades May Be a 1,700-Year-Old Library

Matthew McIntosh — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 15:24:45 +0000

Scholars held a fixed reading of a room in the Roman villa of Fuente Álamo for decades, labeling

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A History of the Modern Rise of Romantic LGBTQ+ Literature

Matthew McIntosh — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 03:01:26 +0000

Once dismissed as a niche, LGBTQ+ romance surged through digital publishing, revealing a vast audience and forcing major

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Renaissance Love Poems Beyond Romantic Love

Matthew McIntosh — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 04:30:31 +0000

Renaissance poets did not reserve their most intimate sonnets for lovers; they also celebrated friendship, family, and chosen

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Amy Lowell Anew: An Elite Woman and Literary Rejection in the Early 20th Century

Matthew McIntosh — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 04:24:31 +0000

Once mocked by Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, Amy Lowell emerges as a vital American modernist whose

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The Battle of Marathon in Ancient Greek Comedy

Matthew McIntosh — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 22:13:20 +0000

Ancient Greek comedy recast Marathon as a heroic memory, using the virtues of an imagined past to sharpen

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Wordsworth Donisthorpe: The Blackmailing Inventor Who Nearly Made Cinema

Matthew McIntosh — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 13:53:08 +0000

Wordsworth Donisthorpe nearly secured a place among cinema’s pioneers, but his Kinesigraph, textile feuds, and attempted blackmail left

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