Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), poet and novelist, explored her obsessions with death, self, and nature in works that expressed her ambivalent attitudes toward the universe. Sylvia Plath was born in Boston's Memorial Hospital on October 27, 1932, to Aurelia an...

Now famous for her ritual flirtations with death, Sylvia Plath has emerged as a significant fig- ure in contemporary American literature in the two and a half decades since her suicide on 11 February 1963. Her reputation as an accomplished and versatile...

In his introduction to The Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950-62 (1982), her husband, poet Ted Hughes, wrote that she wore "many masks" but that he believes he knew her "real self" -- "the self I had married, after all, and lived with and knew well." Yet thi...

This week's look at what's new, bountiful or mysterious in the produce aisles. Blackberries are often dubbed bramble berries for the prickly, thorny shrub, or bramble, upon which they grow. There are more than a 1,000 varieties of blackberries that range in color...

THIS ANCIENT BERRY LEADS THE WAY IN NUTRITION AND TASTE The Bible mentions blackberries; ancient Greeks prescribed them for gout; during the Civil War they were used to treat dysentery. Today, blackberries are mostly enjoyed because they are sweet and juicy. They also...

Last week, I wrote a story about Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's pollster and close political advisor, and his former business associates. As I noted earlier, Penn is suing his former business partner Michael Berland, and several other former employees of their company, Penn, Schoen &...

A malfunction at Research in Motion temporarily knocked out e-mail and text-message service for nearly 8 million BlackBerry users who connect through cellular carriers in North America, Europe and Asia. The blackout began sometime Tuesday evening, and service didn't resume until Wednesday morning. It was...