0 thoughts on “Open Mic”

  1. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to mention a great book I recently read. For any who loves books I can’t recommend ‘Parnassus on Wheels’ (by Christopher Morley) highly enough. It’s a very funny oddball romance; among other things. (The sequel is the Haunted bookshop. Both are available free online.)

  2. Thanks, Aitchmark. That means a lot.

    Searider, that’s an interesting recommendation. I must quote from chapter one of Parnassus on Wheels:

    I WONDER if there isn’t a lot of bunkum in higher education? I never found that people who were learned in logarithms and other kinds of poetry were any quicker in washing dishes or darning socks. I’ve done a good deal of reading when I could, and I don’t want to “admit impediments” to the love of books, but I’ve also seen lots of good, practical folk spoiled by too much fine print. Reading sonnets always gives me hiccups, too.

    I never expected to be an author! But I do think there are some amusing things about the story of Andrew and myself and how books broke up our placid life. When John Gutenberg, whose real name (so the Professor says) was John Gooseflesh, borrowed that money to set up his printing press he launched a lot of troubles on the world.

  3. Anyone have an idea when the term “collective punishment” was first used? The press are using it to describe Israel’s war on Hezbollah.

  4. Speaking of mobile book shops; I grew up in a remote country area…. dairy farming mainly …. with houses a mile or 2 apart… and once a month a van of sorts came around from the public library. I wonder if this was inspired by ‘Parnassus on Wheels.’ Can anyone tell me about the chronology here? (For those who don’t know Parnassus was a used book store on wheels, pulled by a horse… in the early part of the 20th century.)

    – If anyone is confused by the above quote (#5) from the novel; it was the opinion of (as I remember) the sister of one of the main characters who isn’t impressed much by books… doesn’t see the point of all this literature stuff.

    – don’t let the curmudgeons put you off; we all need to read a good romance every ten years or so.

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