Bill Maher has leaked his list of favorite books to The Week. On the list is Moby Dick, a book Maher has not read. In the vein of Banned Books Week, I think you’ll agree with me that this is a scandalous violation of Maher’s privacy, even if he did give them the list himself. I’m shocked. I mean, distributing photos of celebrity nursing (that’s baby feeding) by a well-meaning Wal-Mart employee is one thing. This book list is quite another.
Category Archives: Reading
Poll on Lit Mags
Do you read literary magazines? Give your reason through the link here.
Happy Labor Day
My weekend was a quiet one. I puttered around my gutters a bit and washed my car, but didn’t accomplish a whole lot. Today I had to go in to work for a while, because every year on September 1 it is my obligation to give an orientation lecture on the library to our new students. Such are the sacrifices I make for my calling.
I read Leif Enger’s new book, So Brave, Young and Handsome. I’ll review it tomorrow. I’ll just say now that I liked it quite a lot, and would have been surprised if I hadn’t.
Then I read a Dean Koontz, Ticktock. Delightful. I started another, The Voice of the Night, which is an early book, and quickly gave me hints that it was one of the unpleasant ones he wrote before he found his voice, so I cast it aside into the outer darkness. Now I’m reading Twilight Eyes, and liking it a lot.
Hope you had a good holiday.
Literacy as a tool of tyranny
The title of this post probably suggested to you one of two things. Either I’m going to make fun of some leftist academic who derides western literature and education as a tool of capitalist oppressors, or I’m going to attack some work of literature that seems to me totalitarian in its ideas.
I’m going to do neither. I’m going to talk about the history of literacy. Because it’s a fact, I believe, that historically, literacy has been a tool of tyranny (Bear with me. It moves on from there). Continue reading Literacy as a tool of tyranny
Don’t Call Me Stoopeed
I meant to link to this earlier. Britannica has coordinated a talk on whether The Internet (pause for silent reverence) is ruining our concentration. I’m willing to see this as a possibility. I know I scan a lot. I glance; I skim. I don’t blame the Internet for it.
Um, Did You Actually Read the Book?
Fiction readers have better social skills?
Jackie Gingrich Cushman over at Townhall reports on a study from the University of Toronto which concludes that readers of fiction develop betters social skills than readers of nonfiction, because they learn vicariously about the results of various kinds of human interaction.
Funny, it never worked for me. But then my tombstone will say, “Here lies an outlier.” In fact, they’ll probably bury me across the street from the cemetery, so I can outlie some more.
It’s an interesting theory in any case.
Do We Buy Books We Don’t Read?
In England, some authors are asking why people appear to be buying books but not reading them.
More Reading for Guys
Amazon.com has a list of reading material for boys; at least, that’s what my email told me. I see know the list mixes boy and girl interests.
Who’s the greatest Christian fiction writer?
In case you don’t monitor The Thinklings blog, you may want to contribute to Bird’s post asking who is the greatest Christian fiction writer.