Witold Rybczynski, author of Last Harvest : How a Cornfield Became New Daleville: Real Estate Development in America from George Washington to the Builders of the Twenty-first Century, and Why We Live In Houses Anyway and subject of a post here last month, was on NPR earlier this week.

China's largest bookstore, the state-owned Xinhua chain, celebrated its 70th anniversary today. The bookstore is older than (Communist) China itself, having been founded in 1937, twelve years before the People's Republic was declared in 1949. But all may not be well for the stores. The official Chinese newsagency (confusingly also called "Xinhua") reports this remark … Continue reading Another Great Leap?