Ayn Rand’s early unpublished fiction
tags:
Ayn Rand, books, fiction, literature, Peikoff, reading, writing
I picked up an old, yellowed copy of The Early Rand (Signet, ed. Leonard Peikoff, 1984) and have thoroughly enjoyed reading from her early unpublished fiction. Peikoff and Rand were friends. In fact, she was influential in his move from studying medicine to philosophy. He…
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1 commentDigitized reads
tags:
books, ebooks, etexts, libraries, literature, online reading
I discovered Manybooks,net four years ago when I was venturing outside the publisher’s literature anthology in search of readings that would better suit my students’ needs. The site is clean, only a few ads, and easy to navigate. Matthew McClintock maintains the site as a…
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Book Tag
tags:
books
My friend Pam tagged me. For those of you who are Lord of the Ring fans you’ll love this. See if you can figure out which book this is from.
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A Huge Plug!
My pal Camy Tang is having a huge website contest. I thought I’d plug the news here for those of you who have heard about her, but don’t know her. If you do sign up for her contest be sure to put me in the…
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The Liar’s Diary
tags:
bloggers, books, fiction, novels, Patry Francis, wirters
The Liar’s Diary by Patry Francis is released today in paperback. With a title like that, you can expect it to be a compelling read. Here’s the description: When new music teacher Ali Mather enters Jeanne Cross’s quiet suburban life, she brings a jolt of…
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Bookstore Guide
tags:
books, bookstore, Europe, shopping
An amateur guide to book shopping throughout Europe - a great resource for book lovers and travelers alike.
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Bookstore Guide
tags:
books, bookstore, Europe, shopping
An amateur guide to book shopping throughout Europe - a great resource for book lovers and travelers alike.
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In Over My Head Part 2
tags:
books, career change, I just finished, nursing, passion, reading, web design
In Way Over My Head! Part #2 So, the idea. I have this habit of really getting into the books I read. Well, the good ones, anyway. So when I finish one I enjoy, I want more. More of the character, more info, the next…
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In Way Over My Head Part 1
tags:
blogging, books, career change, passion, reading
In self help books the advise to make changes in your life usually is something along the lines of “get out of your comfort zone”, so right now, my life must be changing drastically. That, actually is the goal, but much like the goal of…
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Book-blog’s best reads of 2007
tags:
book reviews, books, Dick York, Joseph Finder, Patricia Highsmith, Peter Sagal, Scott Smith
We’re nearing the end of 2007, which means that it’s time for me to look back over the my year of reading and revisit the books I designated as 5-star reads. I was a less prolific reader this year than in years past. The slow-down…
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The Well-Suitedness of the Book
tags:
books, literature, writing
Dead Beat, as you know, has that old streak of engineering in him, and so has for years wondered how e-books or e-magazines or e-papers should work. About eight years ago he decided that it would require a flexible screen. Imagine the cover of a…
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Win an October Booksense Book!
Joshua Henkin, author of Matrimony, an October Booksense Pick (and a great read!) is giving away an autographed copy of his book to one of my readers. Details here: http://deweymonster.com/?p=421
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24 Hour Read-a-thon
tags:
blog activities, books, read-a-thon
The (first annual?) 24 Hour Read-a-thon will be held on Saturday October 20th. Not all participants need to spend 24 hours reading. You can customize the event to suit your needs. Aside from readers, we’re also seeking cheerleaders (some of whom will plan mini-challanges) to…
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The October BAFAB Week is coming!
tags:
BAFAB, books, Buy a Friend a Book Week
And I’ve updated the new, improved BAFAB site with book recommendations for the occasion from me and from my guest reviewer, lit blogger and YA author Gail Gauthier. Here’s the official announcement.
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bookworms carnvial is up
tags:
blogs, books, carnivals, novels
The first edition of the Bookworms Carnival is up at http://deweymonster.com/?page_id=202
This month’s theme is novels; the carnival features a wide variety of genres. Posts from bloggers all over a world are included; come find some new books and maybe some new blog friends!
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New! Blog carnival for book lovers
There’s a new carnival for book lovers called The Bookworms Carnival. You can submit a post as often as every month to be part of the carnival and expose your blog to a whole new audience. This month’s theme is the very broad category NOVELS,…
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The rules of reading
You know how the way we read certain books and certain authors influences to a certain extent the way we understand them. I mean, we read books according to what they are supposed to be. It may not always be a critical process, but it’s…
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On books as sweaters (part 3 of 3)
tags:
Adorno, books, Gordimer, reading, reviews, Sontag
In the weeks since the book section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was closed down, many good articles have been written to analyze the state of literary criticism in the US (notably here), and after a brief survey of the litblogs, the furor seems to have…
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Dead Beat Rises From The Dead
tags:
books
So outside of Leonard Cohen what’s the loneliest thing you can think of? I’ll tell you: an empty bookshelf. And I’ll tell you what’s lonelier than that: Dead Beat’s library. If you haven’t been in Dead Beat’s library, then you have missed out on one…
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Castaway
Location: Desert island: Lush, hot, a paradise. Initial Task: Write that cracking novel. The one that turns the world. Duration: 3 years. Final Task: Awaiting instructions. 06 June 2007 Have survived 3 years on the island now. Learnt how to fish, cook, build shelter. Survive.…
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Comments on “The Ghost Map”
tags:
books, history, public policy
Let’s be clear at the outset: if you are the least bit squeamish, don’t read this book. While it is about 19th century medicine, the insight of a few, the blindness of many, it is also a book about the unbelievable filth, squalor and poverty…
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Comments on “Bomb Scare” by Joseph Cirincione
tags:
books, nuclear weapons, public policy
Like many other people, I heard the interview with Joseph Cirincione on NPS (Fresh Air, 21 MAR 07). I was quite impressed with his depth of knowledge and his ability to articulate an argument. In short, he was quite well spoken. I found his writing…
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On Books as Sweaters
tags:
book reviewing, books, literary criticism, NBCC, Oprah, writing
When did books become totally irrelevant to the life of the majority of the population in the US? The one purpose they could be counted on to serve, that of entertainment, has been gradually replaced by the movies, the television, the Internet, the MP3 player. The other function of the novel, for instance, to instruct, has been usurped by reality television. The reading masses who in Victorian England made Dickens and Trollope and Collins bestsellers and kept Mudie’s lending library in business today are now learning how not to behave from the derelicts on “The Real Housewives of the OC.”
The next sector up of the reading public is reading whatever Oprah tells them to. And still more sophisticated readers ignore Oprah and listen to the New York Times, which is not much more reliable. Not that there’s anything wrong with Oprah’s picks, or the NYT anointed. They’re usually fine. But very rarely is the writing anything great.
You know what is great? Their marketing team. The amount of negotiating it took for those books to get under the nose of the right person at the right time. Sure, they all have a basic level of excellence. But they are reduced to commodities instead of texts. In this schema, it is irrelevant to establish why Special Topics in Calamity Physics is inferior to On Beauty. People will buy and read both because the New York Times told them to, and who cares about the difference?
I care about the difference.
It’s like that scene in “The Devil Wears Prada” when Meryl Streep coolly explains the trickle-down theory of fashion: that what Andie thinks is an anti-choice (throwing on the first sweater she sees in her closet in the morning) is actually a choice that has been made for her by the people she thinks are irrelevant to her life: those at the very apex of the fashion industry (who are responsible for the sweater’s existence). And you’re right to assume that in this schema, books are sweaters. (It’s just that On Beauty is Chanel whereas Special Topics is J. Crew). The people who buy Oprah’s books are making a non-choice. They’re just bringing in pizza because they’re too lazy to cook. Nothing wrong with pizza. But what’s wrong with cooking? And besides—who are you going to trust to recommend something to eat, Oprah or a food critic? Both, probably, but I would hope more credence would be given to the trained professional.
There are only five freestanding book review sections left in the country and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution fired their book editor two weeks ago. This is bad, and over six thousand writers and book lovers have signed a National Book Critics’ Circle petition asking the AJC to reinstate her. But does anyone actually care if book reviews have their own section in a newspaper or if they’re just thrown in with all the other arts coverage. For that matter, why should books get their own section?
I can’t really give you a convincing enough reason. I can only shake my head and say wistfully that books ought to be much more important than they are. Books do everything the other arts do and they do it more articulately. Books teach us to be functioning, expressive individuals. Movies and television give you empty lines to repeat while you get drunk with your friends. Books make you think for yourself.
« La littérature peut beaucoup, » writes Tzvetan Todorov in his recent essay La littéreature en péril. « Elle peut nous tendre la main quand nous sommes profondément déprimés, nous conduire vers les autres êtres humains autour de nous, nous faire mieux comprendre le monde et nous aider à vivre. Ce n’est pas qu’elle soit, avant tout, une technique de soins de l’âme ; toutefois, révélation du monde, elle peut aussi, chemin faisant, transformer chacun de nous de l’intérieur. » (p. 72)
“Literature can do many things. It can lend a hand when we are profoundly depressed, open us up to the other human beings surrounding us, help us better to live and to understand the world. This is not to say that it is above all a means of healing the soul; nevertheless it can be revelatory, and transforming.” (p. 72)
“Literature has a vital role to play,” Todorov argues, but in order for it to do so it must return to the status it enjoyed up until the end of the 19th century. This is where literary critics come in. So you want to read something other than what Oprah tells you to? Great! But without book reviews in newspapers—at the very least—where are you going to find out what’s worth reading?
Ah yes, that’s right. I forgot. You’re already there. You’re here. The internet.
We’ll talk about that more, next class. I promise I won’t leave you hanging. But this is long enough for now.
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Announcing TwitterLit!
The secret project I’ve been working on here in the lair is now ready for public scrutiny! I’ve created a new site, TwitterLit.com. What is TwitterLit? Twice a day, at about 12:00 AM and 12:00PM GMT, I’ll post the first line of a book to…
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Collinsworth, Eden: It Might Have Been What He Said
tags:
book reviews, books, Eden Collinsworth
Arcade © 2006, 279 pages [amazon]
Eden Collinsworth’s It Might Have Been What He Said begins with an arresting first paragraph:
“Isabel could remember the precise moment she tried killing her husband. Strangely enough, she couldn’t recall why.”
The lines suggest what sort of a story might follow: layers of mystery and deceit to be unwrapped, and pieces of Isabel’s mental puzzle connecting to form a clearer image of the events that precipated the story’s violent climax. But that’s not what happens. The book tells the story of Isabel’s marriage to James, an account that encompasses forays into their respective childhoods. Isabel’s was something out of a gothic novel (so even the author tells us), with a distant father who communicated almost exclusively through New York Times clippings, an undemonstrative, mentally ill mother, and a by-the-book nanny. James is the scion of an aristocratic but money-poor Virginia family. James’ principal problem is that he’s fiscally irresponsible. Isabel’s principal problem is James. Their marriage should never have happened, should not have lasted for as long as it did, and when it fails no one should be surprised. As for the book’s first lines, their promise is never paid off: Isabel, as it happens, eventually regains her memory of the event without any trouble at all, and the attempted murder, when it’s finally detailed to us, proves to be anticlimactic. Since it amounts to nothing in the end, it becomes apparent that Isabel’s memory lapse is merely a device used to delay the narration of the dramatic scene.
Continue reading at book-blog.com »
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Book-blog.com on Twitter!
tags:
book reviews, books, Twitter
Book-blog.com now has its own Twitter account! Add the book-blog as your Twitter friend to receive notifications of new reviews and the occasional announcement. If you haven’t signed up for Twitter yet, do go check it out--it’s a very cool global communication tool with a…
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the alchemy of reading, part I
tags:
Alberto Manguel, books, Jeanette Winterson, literature, maitresse, Nancy Huston, reading
“It is part of the alchemy of books that the written word rewrites itself on the reader and that one thing becomes another as it passes through various states of change while remaining itself. Don’t tell me that books are not mysterious – they are.” --Jeanette Winterson
Last night, I settled into bed around eleven o’clock with the novel I started reading over the weekend. It wasn’t long before I realized my apartment had a curious sense of presence-- as if something were in the apartment apart from me and my dog. On cue, Baxter started to bark in the other room. Starting to get a little freaked, I got out of bed, put on my slippers, and cautiously opened the bedroom door. I caught a glimpse of movement across the room and jumped out of my skin, then realized I was seeing my own reflection in the mirror hanging on the bathroom door, which I had left open. Baxter barked again. I told him to calm down and go to sleep (trying to convince myself of the same thing). I went back to my bedroom, shut the door firmly behind me, climbed into bed, and slipped back into my book. I read for another half hour or so and then, putting the closed book on my nightstand, quickly turned out the light and pulled the covers over my head. If they can’t see me, I thought, the same thought I’ve had since childhood, falling asleep under similar circumstances, they can’t get me.
All that because I’m reading a book about vampires! The opening chapters of The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, lay the groundwork for the plot in teasing, thrilling chapters that so far include mysterious appearances and disappearances, and a father who is too terrified to recount the story of his encounters with Dracula to his daughter and so can only do it in short increments. The text is aware of its place in the scaffolding of the Dracula myth, from the fifteenth century to the present day, but it is no less unsettling for this acknowledgment.
This kind of terror is what Jeanette Winterson alludes to in her recent article in the Times. In this essay, she observes that there are far too many books being published these days for anyone to read all of them, and indeed, quite few that are worth reading. How is one to cut a swathe through the literary bracken? The only real way to read, Winterson writes, is to “follow [your] eccentricities,” wherever they may take you. For example, here’s where Winterson says her own eccentricities have recently led:
I have just been reading Captain Cook’s Journals, which made me read Robinson Crusoe again, which made me think about island narratives, and has run me towards Boswell and Johnson in the Hebrides, Marianne Wiggins’s wonderful novel John Dollar and to Diana Souhami’s award-winning Selkirk’s Island, which made me order Coconut Chaos, her new book on Pitcairn.
Isn’t reading fun?
However, I have to disagree with her on one point: her outright dismissal of books on how or what to read, likening them to the “menu turistico beloved of nervous holidaymakers in foreign parts.” I take issue with this statement on several levels.
In the first place, my eccentricities have led me to the work of Alberto Manguel. Here’s how: While perusing in my local Barnes and Noble years ago, I came upon a paperback with an alluring name: The Mark of the Angel. I read the back cover and found it took place in Paris. Sold. An intellectual fascination (and something more, something more personal) with Nancy Huston was born. Last fall, hearing Huston would be on a panel at Festival America with Margaret Atwood and Edmund White (whose book on Paris I decidedly did not appreciate), I took my little self out to Vincennes to hear her. And there beside her was a deeply philosophical Argentinian-Canadian, whose comments and works mark him as the heir to Borges and Benjamin. “Je ne construis pas la vie sans lecture,” he said; when we read, the book becomes part of our “bibliothèque intérieure.”
It’s true: if you want to know who someone is, you can tell a lot from the books they own. And I don’t mean this as an elitist judgment-- it’s not to say that people who don’t keep books aren’t interesting people, or that people who buy and read chick lit aren’t intelligent, but that much can be gleaned about that person’s relationship to their mind and to ideas from their bookshelves.
After the panel, I went to the book tent, where I bought Une histoire de la lecture(1996) and La Bibliothèque, la nuit (2006) as well as a short work on Borges and added them to my “to read” pile at home. (Manguel also has a book called A Reading Diary: A Passionate Reader’s Reflection on a Year of Books(2004) that I’m hoping to add to my library.)
A few months later, they’re still in my “to read” pile; I’m thinking I may get to them in April or perhaps over the summer. Because I’m so interested in Manguel’s understanding of literature, and the alchemical process of reading, this provides a good reason for me to read his reading diary. If I respect a writer, such as Manguel, Winterson, Huston, then I will be interested to know what I can learn from their reading habits and journals that could in turn help my own reading and enlarge my understanding of literature and the world we inhabit. And I’m sure that Manguel will lead me other places, to writers I haven’t read, or to consider those I have in a different light. [Speaking of world we inhabit, Manguel now lives in a farmhouse in Poitou-Charentes. I wonder how I might angle for an invitation...]
I suspect, however, that Winterson was not alluding to works like those of Manguel, but perhaps to something like How to Read a Poem, by Terry Eagleton (2006), Catching Life by the Throat: How to Read Poetry and Why, by Josephine Hart (2006) , How to Read and Why, by Harold Bloom (2001), or So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading, by Sara Nelson (2004), which best seems to prove Winterson’s point: if there are so many books to read and not enough time to read them, why spend time reading about Nelson reading?
Which brings me to my second point, which will consider why we should in fact read Eagleton and Nelson on reading. But I’ve gone on long enough for now; that’s a post for another day. To be continued…
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Prerau, David: Seize the Daylight
tags:
book reviews, books, David Prerau, Daylight Saving Time, DST, Seize the Daylight
I grew up hearing as an explanation for Daylight Saving Time that it was “good for the farmers.” It turns out that this is a widespread misconception, and it also turns out not to be true: farmers have in fact historically opposed the adoption or expansion of DST because of the inconveniences it imposes on them. Another childhood illusion put to bed, if decades late.
Since 1986 the U.S. has observed DST from the first Sunday of April to the last Sunday of October. Beginning in 2007, DST is to be expanded by three weeks (in accordance with the Energy Policy Act of 2005). It will now begin on the second Sunday of March and extend until the first Sunday of November. Given this change I figured it was high time for me to find out what Daylight Saving Time is all about.
I review below David Prerau’s Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time. It’s the first of two DST-related books that have been weighing down my TBR shelves. Both books were published in 2005--the idea of exploring DST apparently being very much in the air in the first years of the new millennium. My review of Michael Downing’s Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time will appear tomorrow.
Thunder’s Mouth Press © 2005, 256 pages [amazon]
Benjamin Franklin proposed in 1784, when he was serving as the American minister to France, that Parisians conserve energy--in the form of candle wax and tallow--by changing their habits, rising with the sun rather than sleeping in with their shutters closed against the daylight. The idea never caught on, and it is at any rate impractical as it would depend on the alteration of individual habits on a large scale for it to have any chance of working for a community. Over a hundred years later, in 1905, a certain William Willett devised an alternative plan for increasing the number of usable daylight hours during England’s summer months. His plan, what we now call Daylight Saving Time, called for setting the nation’s clocks forward in the spring (he initially imagined the time being changed in 20-minute increments on each of four successive Sundays) and back in the fall, thus not relying on people to alter their sleep patterns on an individual basis. His idea didn’t catch on either, at least not immediately. In his book Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time author David Prerau, who has coauthored government reports on the effects of DST, traces the complex history of DST from Willett’s tireless campaigning on behalf of its adoption to the modern era. Prerau also provides a chapter on the two artificial adjustments to natural sun time that men adopted prior to the introduction of DST. (Mean solar time was adopted starting in the late 18th century. It differs from apparent solar time in that the length of a day is a constant throughout the year rather than depending on the amount of daylight in any given day, which varies throughout the year. The second artificial adjustment was standard time, adopted in the late 19th century, which is when a single mean time is recognized over a large area.)
Continue reading at book-blog.com »
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Interview with Award-Winning Editor Ellen Datlow (Partial. View the rest on The Writers’ Block)
tags:
books, editing, Ellen Datlow, interviews, writing
We have a special treat for all the readers of this blog. For those of you that may not know, Ellen Datlow is an award-winning editor of multiple anthologies, including The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror (with Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant. The anthology is going into its 20th year) and Salon Fantastique (with Terri Windling). She has the distinction of winning seven World Fantasy Awards and several Bram Stoker awards, among many others. Ellen Datlow is probably best known for helping to develop the talents of science fiction and horror writers and has worked with and published some of those genres’ brightest stars, such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Stephen King.
As a writer, editing is an important but often difficult task, and it’s nice to know that there are editors out there like Ellen. Seriously, folks, I’ve had nightmares about editing my work. Giant semicolons and commas chasing me like something out of Alice in Wonderland…
Without further ado:
Interview with Ellen Datlow -
NG: What is the first story you remember editing and do you know what that author does now?
Ellen: I don’t remember the first author I edited at OMNI (my first job in genre publishing) but I edited “Johnny Mnemonic” by William Gibson and “Eyes I Dare not Meet in Dreams” by Dan Simmons and edited several others by each of them thereafter.
Both are bestselling authors. Bill has a new novel called Spook Country coming out this spring and Dan’s novel The Terror has just been published to excellent reviews.
NG: As an editor, what are your pet peeves about some of the stories you come across?
Ellen: They’re not properly formatted (those that are single spaced just go into the trash). Stories that are completely inappropriate for what I’m editing at the time despite the fact that the author should have seen the guidelines. Stories without self-addressed-stamped envelopes, stories that are emailed to me….
NG: You’ve said before that “most of your job as an editor is to prevent authors from falling.” Can you elaborate on this?
Ellen: Once I make the decision to buy a story, my job is to help the author produce the best story she can. If there are problems with a plot point or the ending, or inconsistencies in character or a section that needs clarification, I’ll try to guide the author by making suggestions and asking questions. For example, if I don’t understand what’s going on, I’ll ask the author to explain to me what she thinks is going on. Further, I’ll say that while not everything must be on paper, if she, the author, doesn’t understand what’s going on then neither will the reader–and I think communication with the reader is crucial. This doesn’t mean that everything needs to be spelled out. There can be ambiguity in a story, as long as it’s intentional.
NG: What do you do when a writer resists your suggestions?
Ellen: There are a few different situations wherein this might happen: If I know I want to buy the story because I love it and the fixes I’ve suggested are minor, I’ll let it go. And if the author can persuade me that he is right, I’ll let it go [meaning I’ll buy the story anyway].
If I like a story and think that the story would be stronger with certain problems addressed, I may make suggestions and ask the writer for a rewrite—with no guarantees until I read the rewrite.
Or if it’s a story I think is interesting and might work with a rewrite I may ask to see the story again if it’s completely rewritten. No guarantees. If the writer resists, I won’t buy the story. But as I’ve said, even with a rewrite there’s no guarantee that I’ll buy the rewritten story.
NG: There are a number of new writers emerging in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. Is there anything that stands out to you between those that succeed in those genres and those that do not?
Ellen: It depends on what you mean by “succeed” –there are some terrible writers who are successful, in that their books or stories always sell and that they make a living off their fiction writing. I’ll assume you mean “succeed” in my terms—in other words, the writers whose work I regularly publish or would like to publish.
The voice of an author is very important and those who are coming at a story from an unusual direction. I personally prefer visual writing in which I can “see” what is happening.
There are plenty of mediocre writers who succeed in the short run—they have little to say but they say it in a readable style. They are writing for success, not out of passion. I don’t think their work will last. Instead of trying to become the “next big thing” new writers should concentrate on discovering what they need to write, what they’re passionate about. They need to find their voice. I’ve seen some newer writers who wrote a few good stories and then suddenly blossom—one writer I’m thinking of has been writing a series of stories in an odd futuristic world, moving from pretty good fantasy stories to unusually, thought-provoking sf stories.
***
View the rest of the interview & leave comments at The Writers’ Block
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Outwitting History
Author: Aaron Lansky
Genre: Memoir, Jews, Yiddish
Pub. Date: October 2005
Format: Paperback, 328pp
Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Catchy title isn’t it? Who wouldn’t want outsmart fascist dictators or evil emperors? To be a hero for the masses, the over thrower of a despotic regime is many a man’s dream. But to do so with books seems a little farfetched. Yet that is exactly what Aaron Lansky did. Well, at least metaphorically.
Outwitting History is the memoir of Aaron Lansky. He tells the story, from his own point-of-view, of the creation of the National Yiddish Book Center and its mission to save the world’s Yiddish books. The Yiddish Book Center is an organization that collects, digitizes, translates, and disseminates Yiddish literature.
Yiddish is the language of the Jews in exile, primarily those in Easter Europe, those most persecuted and destroyed by the Holocaust and other similar endeavors. It has been said that great suffering creates great writers. This is the case for Yiddish especially. The language is an amalgamation of tongues from Europe, one used by the Jews in exile to speak to one another. It was their common language, unlike Hebrew, which was limited to religious texts.
Lansky tells the story of his need for Yiddish books to read for a class in Yiddish (so uncommon a thing at the time, there were only five people in the class, and it wasn’t even accredited.) Thinking on the problem, Lansky realized that many of the people of his grandparents’ generation who owned many Yiddish books that their successors couldn’t even read. So he came up with the idea of collecting them, cataloging them and storing them. This saved them from the ruthless assimilation culture (a culture that denigrated the past) common for American Jews, who desired to join the melting pot that was the United Sates of the early 1900s.
The story of the growth of the Yiddish Book Center from a personal library to a worldwide non-profit organization is at times sad, and at times very comical, but always interesting.
The book does suffer from (an expected) myopia about the validity of the Jewish culture and Yiddish books in particular. Calling Yiddish the language of Jewish culture, rather than religion, Lansky does his best to divorce the religion of the Jews from being Jewish. And while his point is well-taken, such a divorce is saddening. The chosen people of God have devolved from that high place into one culture among many.
However, Lansky is to be applauded for saving so many books, from a culture that, without his efforts, likely would have disappeared with little to show. The wealth of literature that Yiddish brings to the world is not to be denied, and should be studied as much as we study any other written tongue.
For those who love books, some the anecdotes and stories are horrifying. For those who love the Jewish religion and the Christian faith it spawned will be saddened that the chosen people have fallen so far. And for those who want to learn something about Jewishness both past and present, this is an excellent introduction into the culture.
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Dakota Fanning and the big deal over a fake rape
tags:
books, current events, movies, news
In her new movie “Hounddog,” Dakota Fanning plays a 12-year-old girl that gets raped. And this is causing a big hoopla, because some people believe it is “simulated sex.” There is a big difference between sex and rape. Rape and child molestation are not consensual…
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Favorites of 2006 Survey: Results
Recently, I posted a survey (here and here), asking readers to list their favorite reads of 2006, along with a few other book & blog-related items. 16 respondents completed the survey and the results are listed below.
Only unique responses are listed; if more than one person referenced the same work, the number at the end indicates frequency for that specific answer. More than one response was given to some questions. There is no significance to the order in any of the listings.
The books and blogs listed illustrate how varied lit-bloggers/bookbloggers are. Tastes may differ: one person’s favorite of the year might be your nominee for the worst book of the year. (At least one of the books below might have made an appearance if I bothered to compiled such a listing.) But, even when I disagree --and sometimes because I disagree—I love reading what other bloggers have to say about their experiences with reading.
I encourage you to check out any of the bloggers or the specific posts listed below if you are not familiar with them.
1. Favorite fiction book read in 2006
Straight Man, Richard Russo
Everyman by Philip Roth
The Birth House by Ami McKay
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield (3)
Breakable You, Brian Morton
The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
Winter’s Bone, Daniel Woodrell
Arthur and George, Julian Barnes
Lisey’s Story, Stephen King
Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges
2. Favorite non-fiction book read in 2006
Me Talk Pretty Some Day, David Sedaris
Curse of the Narrows, Laura MacDonald
Devil’s Teeth, Susan Casey
Sweet and Low: A Family Story, Rich Cohen
Marley and Me, John Grogan
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
Blithe Tomato, Mike Madison,
Enrique’s Journey, Sonia Nazario.
Assassination Vacation, Sarah Vowell
City of Falling Angels, John Berendt
The Mighty and the Almighty, Madeleine Albright
On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan
How Reading Changed My Life, Anna Quindlen
3. Favorite book-related controversy
Critics vs. Book Bloggers (3)
Oprah no longer leading a book discussion.
Judith Reagan (3) (one respondent called this a dis-honorable mention!)
Frey-Gate (4)
The one about bibliographies in novels because it was so irrational.
4. Favorite Blog Post
Lima Stew and Blender Tuna Mousse: Unrescued Recipes, Lily at Bloglily.
BlogLily’s Saying Farewell to Illness, Lily at Bloglily
The pitfalls of receiving free books, or how not to risk your book blogging credibility, Kimbofo at Reading Matters.
Pay it forward...and Win a Venator Survival Kit!, Colleen Gleason, For All the World To See.
Simply Wait, Patry Francis
interview with Patry Francis, Susan Henderson’s LitPark
Race report; or, isn’t it great when we all help each other out?, Dorothy, Of Books and Bicycles
“On Richard Russo’s Straight Man”, Litlove, Tales from the Reading Room
“Deliver Us From Thinking” Tim Sterne, Sarsaparilla
5. Favorite Daily Read
A Work in Progress (4)
P-S Shelf Life
Pesky Apostrophe (2)
SciFi Chick
One Whipped Mother
DoveGreyReader Scribbles, DovegreyReader
LitPark
The Hobgoblin of Little Minds, BikeProf
Bloglily, Lily (2)
Tales from the Reading Room, Litlove (3)
Box of Books, Ella
Of Books and Bicycles, Dorothy W.
Cam’s Commentary, Cam
Telecommuter Talk, Emily
Metaxucafe
6. Favorite Group Blog or Blogging Community
A Curious Singularity
BlogHer
Pop Goes the Library
MetaxuCafe (4)
The Slaves of Golconda (2)
The Valve
7. Favorite Blog Controversy
Critics vs Book Bloggers, summarized here (4)
Free Books at Reading Matters (3)
Anything to do with the romance blogs.
8. Favorite Commenter—the one who makes the comments almost as great as the post (on your blog or others)
Kate S, Kate’s Book Blog
Litlove, Tales from the Reading Room (4)
Booklogged, A Reader’s Journal
Carl V., Stainless Steel Droppings
Dorothy, Of Books And Bicycles
Danielle, A Work in Progress
Jay, Kill the Goat
9. Favorite Litblog-related Meme or Challenge
Five things you don’t know about me. Cited because “it gives insights into my fellow bloggers”. This one was everywhere.
The Halloween Meme Emily didn’t start it, but she loves a good meme. Link is to her post.
The Summer Reading Challenge by the bookjunkie. (Link is to her new blog home).
Carl’s RIP Challenge (3)
Cam’s Poetry Meme (3)
Litlove’s Reading meme There was also this one, “The Aspirational Meme”
Kate’s Early Reading Memories meme
One response to this question really made me laugh. It was this: “Yuck!” As I said before: there’s a lot of variety among lit-bloggers!
The Participants:
Only those who indicated in the comments on the original post that they had completed the survey are listed here.
Imani at The Books of My Numberless Dreams
Carl V at Stainless Steel Droppings
Dorothy W at Of Books and Bicycles
Litlove at Tales from the Reading Room
Maggie, at Maggie Reads
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