The medical anthropologist and author talks about her latest book, American Anthrax and germ-warfare threats to the U.S.

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass gives a trenchant account of the violent crack-downs by U.C. Berkeley campus police on occupying students and faculty.

Elizabeth Strout, winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for her novel Olive Kitteridge, will be appearing at Prague’s American center Monday Oct. 3, to read from her work and give a talk entitled “Why Fiction Matters.”

Reza Aslan is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside and the author of No God But God and Beyond Fundamentalism. He is also a regular contributor to The Daily Beast. Most recently, Aslan edited Tablet and Pen: Modern Literary Landscapes from the Middle East. He recently spoke with The Prague Post by phone from New York City.

The Prague Post recently reviewed The Ghosts of Europe by Anna Porter, finding it lacking in depth and conclusive arguments. Porter is certainly not the first author to try her pen at capturing the spirit of the Continent in writing. Here are a few selections from the work of poets, essayists and fiction writers who successful describe the genius loci of Europe in their era.

Poor Max Brod. The writer and editor was recently honored by the unveiling of a plaque at his birthplace at 25 Haštalská Street in Prague, as The Prague Post reported Feb. 2. Brod was a vital member of the German-language literary scene in Prague at the turn of the century and was far more recognized and more widely published in his lifetime than his friend Franz Kafka, but you wouldn’t know this from most accounts.

For readers who have facility with the Czech language, HOST has recently published an enjoyable anthology of the best Czech poems of 2010, a collection of poems gleaned from a number of books and journals. This 143 page anthology, expertly edited by Miloslav Topinka and Jakub Řehák, provides a cross section of contemporary Czech poetry.

A recent visit to Shakespeare and Sons in Mala Strana yielded a used copy of Edward Said’s final book, On Late Style, which was published in 2006, three years after his death of leukemia.This idea of lateness has more recently been taken up in Last Looks, Last Books, by the preeminent American poetry critic Helen Vendler.

After the success of Howl, in which he played Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, James Franco is set to direct and star in another film about an American poet. Franco has reportedly purchased the rights to The Broken Tower, based on Paul Mariani’s eponymous biography of Hart Crane.

Litteraria Pragensia, Prague’s premier academic press, has recently updated and expanded its online archive, which allows readers to access and read online versions of many of the press’s titles for free.