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PHILADELPHIA—The Liberty Bell made its rare outdoor appearance [last month] to move down the block from its old, somewhat cramped pavilion to the new $12.9 million Liberty Bell Center. The last time the bell was outside was on its move from Independence Hall to the pavilion on the rainy New Year's night of Jan. 1, 1976. Few weathered the storm to see that move, so the National Park Service, as if dishing up the brilliant, warm fall day, reveled in making a big ceremony out of this move. … The pavilion that held the Liberty Bell for 27 years was a bit of unloved Americana in the city. A low-slung, boxy, oblong glass building plunked in the middle of an often ill-landscaped block just north of Independence Hall, it was criticized mostly for minimizing the grandeur of the Liberty Bell. … The new Liberty Bell Center sits southwest of the old pavilion but is about twice its size, with an interpretive area explaining the bell's history and a large window behind where the bell now hangs that almost projects it into Independence Hall. Full story

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Recent cartoons in the New Yorker:

- Panhandler to well-dressed passerby: "Don't you remember me? During the blackout we slept on the same sidewalk."

- Customer to cell phone retailer: "Do you have a phone that doesn't do much?"

- Sign in front yard: "For sale by neighbor."

- Executive to others in board room: "I'm making this decision on principle, just to see how it feels."

- Children around a campfire: "Someday, when we're old, we're going to embellish this."

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• History of infinity is part mathematics, part philosophy, from the New Yorker.
• Dense new Goethe volume sure to be 1) ignored and 2) "one of the few towering works of biography and history of our time," says Benjamin Schwarz in the Atlantic Monthly (third item).
• Robert Putnam on the battle against isolation and search for 'social capital' in America, from the Washington Post.
• If Bridget Jones were a Christian, from the Christian Science Monitor.
• Arduous, gradual rise of World Trade Center contrasts with fiery demise, from the New York Times .*
• History of the Democrats and Republicans, from the Post.
• One of the handful of essential books on the civil rights movement, from Atlantic Monthly.
• War scholar disputes the usefulness of spying in war, from the New York Times .*
• Jimmy Carter pens Revolutionary War-era novel, from the Post.
• Mark Twain biography commits grievous crime—failing to make idiosyncratic subject come alive, says Christopher Hitchens in the Atlantic Monthly.
• Alfred Hitchcock biography defends filmmaker against myths, from the Post.
• A history of dance in the twentieth century, from the Christian Science Monitor.
• Shirley Hazzard's first novel in more than 20 years stands among this year's best, says the Economist.
• How and why to call off a wedding, from the Atlantic Monthly.
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Nathan Bierma is editorial assistant at Books & Culture.

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