Web Reads: Listen to this--Bach and other great minds

Music and math. J.S. Bach has a reputation for brilliance, depicted on a Mobius Strip. You can download for free Bach’s Goldberg Variations as well as his pieces for organ.

Listen to me. For 75 years, literary figures have giving lectures and readings at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. People can now listen for free to audio recordings of talks both recent and from the past, including this reading from Walt Whitman by James Earl Jones.

Good reads. It’s that time when book critics compile their lists of best books of the past year. The New York Times list of 100 Notable books of 2013 includes fiction and non-fiction titles. A list from the Observer consists of favorites offered by various writers. Good Reads’ list consists of reader favorites by genre, and NPR lists staff favorites, also by genre.

Hungry history. Has the West forgotten the man-made famine in Ukraine? Eighty years later, many people are not aware the Soviets systematically starved Ukrainians in an attempt to break their spirit and move them onto collective farms. Haunting images tell the story, as do eyewitness accounts.