It’s a cheap joke, I suppose, but I’m still laughing.
Repost: Hunting Down Amanda, by Andrew Klavan
(And another Klavan review recycled tonight. Have a good weekend. I’ll be playing Viking for a Sons of Norway youth event at Danebo Hall in Minneapolis on Saturday. I’ll let you know how it goes, if I live.)
Hunting Down Amanda is a masterful book. It’s fascinating in its own right, as a brilliantly crafted, smart, moving thriller.
It’s also fascinating to the Christian reader as an artifact of the conversion process. Because Klavan, who was not a Christian when he wrote it, was clearly on the way, and his growing interest in matters eternal informs the whole product.
The Amanda of the title is Amanda Dodson, a five-year-old girl who, when the story begins, witnesses a terrible air crash. She wanders to the crash site, and is carried out by a man. Her mother, who has been searching for her, sees this and says, “Oh God. Oh God. Now they’ll come after her.” Continue reading Repost: Hunting Down Amanda, by Andrew Klavan
Let Them Wear Kilts
A man of Finnish and Norwegian descent wants “U.S. Postal Service to add kilts as a uniform option for men.” He says the current uniform chafes. He said, “there are plenty of approved uniform items that very few mail carriers wear, including a cardigan sweater, vest and pith helmet.”
The Religion of Tolerance kills a book
Don’t look for this story in your local newspaper. Do you think it would get covered if Christians tried to get a book “killed” by its publisher?
In May, Random House abruptly called off publication of the book. The series of events that torpedoed this novel are a window into how quickly fear stunts intelligent discourse about the Muslim world.
By way of Power Line.
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.
Poet Laureate Kay Ryan
Our new poet laurate, Kay Ryan, learned at an early age that language was powerful.
Take, for example, the time when, alone with a group of adults, she described “my sixth-grade teacher’s bottom jiggling as she wrote on the blackboard.”
“I caused a woman to spit her milk across the table,” she recalls.
…
One who discovered her was the poet and critic Dana Gioia, now chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. In a 1998 essay in the Dark Horse literary magazine, Gioia noted “the unusual compression and density of Ryan’s work.” Like Emily Dickinson, Gioia wrote, Ryan “has found a way of exploring ideas without losing either the musical impulse or imaginative intensity necessary to lyric poetry.”
Today, Gioia calls Ryan simply “one of the finest poets writing in America,” adding that she has “the gift of being simultaneously very funny and very wise.”
Here’s a Ryan poem called “Death by Fruit.“
Oxford UP End of Summer Sale
The Oxford University Press is having a sale on some interesting anthologies, studies, and books on many subjects.
Of course, there’s always sites like BookCloseouts.com for perpetual sales.
And I just found this site which collects info on library book sales and those by non-profit organizations across the country. Oh, look, the Chattanooga-Hamilton County library is having its sale at the end of the month.
Life in Suffering
The Art of Maniliness is talking about Viktor Frankl today.
Tomorrow, We’ll Have Less Zucchini
Tomorrow, August 8, is Sneak Zucchini onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Night. If you have more zucchini than you want, take time tomorrow to celebrate with friends, family, or strangers by giving it to them. Need a bit of motivation to eat zucchini? Try this yummy zucchini cobbler recipe. It really tastes close to apple cobbler. Ice cream helps as always.
If you happen to be in Vermont later this month, watch out for zucchini enthusiasts at the 11th Annual Vermont State Zucchini Festival. I’m told that if you leave your car windows down while walking around the festival, you may find someone has “blessed” you with vegetable gifts when you return.
Klavan on Psychological Crime Novels
From the Wall Street Journal.
Full disclosure: Of the books listed, I’ve only read Crime and Punishment.