languagehat.com: BO-VRIL.

TNR reviews a new biography
Now Davis brings this project of twentieth-century historiography full circle: not writing the life of someone unknown who did not write, but writing the life of someone famous who wrote a great deal but not much about his own life. The challenge here is to coax biographical details out of a [...]

A Depression Switch? - New York Times

Finally, a satisfying biography of Franz Kafka
Robert Alter reviews ‘Kafka: The Decisive Years’ by Reiner Stach.

The Endless Journey
One part of western culture that has been little recorded and also greatly repressed is that of the Gypsies.
Their culture remains one of the most misunderstood and underrepresented, and is often falsely stereotyped by other cultures. Some characteristics that permeate all gypsy cultures is the denial of citizenship, denial of being bound to [...]

How did modern architecture in Spain get so good? asks Witold Rybczynski.

The EU launched a new website today, EURES where one million jobs within the EU will be on offer. From the EURES-site:
EURES (EURopean Employment Services) brings together the European Commission and the public employment services of the countries belonging to the European Economic Area and Switzerland. Other regional and national bodies concerned with employment issues [...]

No more free money from Germany.

Even though its focus may be far removed from the geopolitics of Europe, Hollywood has reason to be concerned with the recent results of the German elections. The newly designated Minister of Finance Peer Steinbrück announced on Nov. 12 that he was retroactively eliminating the part of the tax [...]

The FT reports this morning that France may be about to ease restrictions on certain highly regulated service industries and on business start-ups as part of a package to create jobs in poor suburbs. It is possible that these initiatives might be a test bed for broader economic reform throughout France. French finance minister, [...]

“A digital divide has appeared among Europeans, with age, income and education determining whether the continent’s citizens use the Internet”, at least this is the conclusion of a new study conducted by Eurostat on behalf of the EU commission.The largest divide by educational level was found in Portugal, and the smallest in Lithuania, [...]