Bill Bryson said, “Ages are generally pretty incompetent at judging their own worth.” This is why we need to read old books and translated books, says this Dane who lives in New York.
Category Archives: Reading
We Were Created to Live
Denise Spencer, wife of Michael Spencer who recently died, has a fiercely beautiful post on life and dying: Sometimes It’s Just Plain Hard.
“Jesse” was another man who had been unconscious as his wife watched his condition deteriorate. She at last whispered to him that she didn’t want him to suffer any more, and she told him to “run to Jesus.” He opened one eye and smiled before dying shortly thereafter. . . .
These are beautiful stories, one and all. Tales of hope in the midst of tragedy. Memories that bring consolation to the bereaved. And I’m getting tired of hearing them. Can I say that out loud? “Why?!” you no doubt gasp in horror. ‘Cause Michael and me, we got nuthin’.
Comfort Zone
What readers want in a book. And from the same blogger comes brief advice on writing: Avoid the broken, bitter, and cold.
Summer is for Reading
Rachel Motte leads a list of summer reading recommendations at The Evangelical Outpost. She’s going to dip into the Qur’an. That’s a bit thick for me at the moment.
I plan to read several Flannery O’Connor stories this summer and The Book of the Dun Cow
Twelve Literary Journals Your Future Agent is Reading
Writer’s Digest “polled 40 literary agents to see which journals they read with an eye for new talent. Then, [they] rounded up 12 of their picks and contacted the publications’ editors for an inside glimpse at each one—and exclusive tips on how you can break in.”
The Faux BBC 100
You’ve seen the lists before saying the BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed. Here’s the list you haven’t seen.
1 Conceit and Chauvinism – Jane Austoon
2 The Dane of the Drinks – PBJ Tokien
3 Jan Eyrie – Charlot Blont
4 Harry, the Boy Who Grows Up to Become a Wizard and Whip an Evil Sorcerer’s Butt series – JK Rowlin
5 To Catch a Mockingbird – Larper Hee
6 The Bible: The Book That Changed the World – Many anonymous authors
7 Withering Snipes – Emily Blont
8 Nineteen Ninety Nine – The Artist Formerly Known as Georgey O.
9 His Dark Materials – Canni Getalight
10 Profound Potential – Charlie B. Dickens
11 Wee Women – Louisa McAlcott
12 Tess: A Sad Novel You Won’t Want to Read – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 33: Prequel to Hyperbole- Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Francis Bacon (The Brain Behind Shakespeare)
15 Daphne Du Maurier – Rebecca Continue reading The Faux BBC 100
Forgotten and Imaginary Books
And now, more of the imaginary or forgotten in the literary. Here’s something from The Believer Magazine, “Short Takes on Books That Don’t Exist: Eleven Essential, Imaginary Beach Reads for Summer” by Steve Hely
From the Guardian a few years ago, here’s a list of books you may not have seen before.
"Relearning how to concentrate"
Here an Englishman talks about distraction. Alain de Botton writes, “The past decade has seen an unparalleled assault on our capacity to fix our minds steadily on anything. To sit still and think, without succumbing to an anxious reach for a machine, has become almost impossible.”
He is the author of many books, including The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
Books, The End of the Making of
Mark Bertrand has an essay on the printed word.
When Ken Myers interviewed me for Mars Hill Audio Volume 90, for example, he kept asking about the decline of literacy, only to have me scoff at the pessimism. Little did I know that the flipside of Volume 90 would feature an extended chat with Dana Gioia about the NEA’s depressing literacy study. Fortunately that part of my interview was excised from the final version, sparing me the indignity of appearing unsuitably optimistic and glib. Ever since, I’ve kept what little optimism I possess to myself.
(via S.D. Smith)
But what do you call the thing beneath it?
Just when I was wondering what to blog about, Loren Eaton at I Saw Lightning Fall uses… that word!
He links to an interesting book review by Newsweek’s Jennie Yabroff, dealing with the thorny subject of… subtext!
The title in question is Joshua Ferris’ The Unnamed, a novel about a lawyer struggling with an undiagnosed compulsion to endlessly walk until he keels over. An odd and evocative premise, one that Yabroff wrestles with mightily. She initially wonders if the affliction may be a metaphor for environmental destruction or the search for the divine or the nature of addiction, but concludes that it doesn’t really matter. “What if the book is about nothing more than a man who takes really long walks?” she muses before launching into a discussion about the dangers of overanalyzing….
This leaves me no choice but to quote one of the best movies of the 1990s, Whit Stillman’s brilliant Barcelona, the story of two American cousins grappling with cultural differences, sexual mores, love, and anti-Americanism in 1980s Spain. This movie contributed one of the greatest bits of dialogue ever placed in two actors’ mouths:
FRED: Maybe you can clarify something for me. Since I’ve been, you know, waiting for the fleet to show up, I’ve read a lot, and–
TED: Really?
FRED: And one of the things that keeps popping up is this about “subtext.” Plays, novels, songs–they all have a “subtext,” which I take to mean a hidden message or import of some kind. So subtext we know. But what do you call the message or meaning that’s right there on the surface, completely open and obvious? They never talk about that. What do you call what’s above the subtext?
TED: The text.
FRED: OK, that’s right, but they never talk about that.
Note to self: Must get the DVD.