Books, Inq. — The Epilogue

"Both and" ...

2012-01-28T19:00:00.000-05:00

or "either or": From Mark Twain to Ray Bradbury, Iconic Writers on Truth vs. Fiction - Maria Popova - Entertainment - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Paul Davis.)

Hmm ... hmmm ...

2012-01-28T18:00:00.000-05:00

... FuturePundit: Intellectual Interests Genetically Predetermined?

A hallmark of the individual is the cultivation of personal interests, but for some people, their intellectual pursuits might actually be genetically predetermined. Survey results published by Princeton University researchers in the journal PLoS ONE suggest that a family history of psychiatric conditions such as autism and depression could influence the subjects a person finds engaging.

But your family history does not determine what you actually encounter in life. You might well go through all of life without suffering any of the cited psychopathologies if you never encountered one or another of them as a subject that engaged you. A good many people these days do not seem to know that a proposition has to be examined from different directions, especially from the one directly opposite, the contradictory, the one that, if true, demonstrates the falseness of the other.

In this case, I think both propositions state a complementary truth. Together, they merely move the question back a step. For it is hard to think of the response prior to the stimulus. It is the satisfaction derived from the stimulus that would have to be predetermined.

This, by the way, is as far as I have got in reading this piece. I think it is worth reading because it lays out quite clearly a argument. But it is also worth reading slowly, taking time think about what it is being said.

Not really ...

2012-01-28T16:00:00.000-05:00

... zmkc: In Praise of Censorship.

And then I thought, 'Do newspapers and reporters ever ask themselves what good it actually does, when they decide to tell us many of the things that they do decide to tell us, usually without ever being asked to tell us?' Do they wonder to themselves about what exact important purpose is served by providing us with all the prurient details of individual acts of gory madness?'

The post is not really about censorship, but about prudence and taste. And no, newspapers and reporters don't really ask such questions. You print what you think people want to read. And sensationalism has a wide appeal.

The value of fabricated truth ...

2012-01-28T15:00:00.000-05:00

... Blog: The Misadventures of Marotta - Chillicothe, IL - Chillicothe Times-Bulletin. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Authors' lairs ...

2012-01-28T14:00:00.000-05:00

... Writing is a life of poverty? Not. | The Book Haven.

Muddled psychologizing ...

2012-01-28T13:00:00.001-05:00

... Siris: Baggini, "Subjective Experiences," and Suspicion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... it is at least as irrational to be suspicious of something for no good reason as it is to accept it for no good reason; and at least in principle they want their suspicions as well as their beliefs to be well-grounded. And the only skeptic I've ever come across who appealed to such a ridiculously broad consideration as Baggini has here is Julian Baggini. And suspicion is as much a subjective experience as anything else: it's one of the kinds of ways we feel that something might not be right.

Indeed ...

2012-01-28T12:00:00.001-05:00

... Paul Davis On Crime: A Brit Looks At An American Crime Writer: Elmore Leonard - The Great American Novelist.

From Hensher's piece:

Leonard's work is a very long way from the average crime novel, with its sequence of atrocity, mystery, maverick investigator and solution. He is fascinated, for instance, with the mechanics of writing, and wants his readers to share that interest. Characters investigate the textures of dialogue – "'How come,' Raylan said, 'you can't answer a question without asking one?'" (Riding the Rap.) They discuss diction in intricate detail – Foley and Buddy reading a newspaper report in Out of Sight: "'They think you may "flee the country."' 'I've had to run like hell a few times,' Foley said, 'but I don't think I've done any fleeing. You ever flee?' 'Yeah. I read one time I fled the scene of a robbery.'"

I have written a couple of times that Leonard should get the Nobel. Like Dickens, he has created a world.

Worried thoughts ...

2012-01-28T11:00:00.000-05:00

... Zealotry of Guerin: Wheat Field With Crows (Van Gogh).

Also born today ...

2012-01-28T10:00:00.000-05:00

... Jackson Pollock 'transcends time and fashion' - Telegraph.

Thought for today ...

2012-01-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.

- Thomas Aquinas, born on this date in 1225

Hmm ...

2012-01-27T21:00:00.000-05:00

... Renegade — Henry Miller and the Making of ‘Tropic of Cancer.’ — By Frederick Turner — Book Review - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

It grieves me to say it, but I think this is mostly crap. Henry/Val in the Tropics is not Henry Miller (Tropic of Capricorn, by the way, is a far better book than Tropic of Cancer). Bawdy humor seems to escape Winterson. The Miller in the books is a parody, a caricature. I reviewed a biography of him years ago. I foget the name of the book and the name of the author - a woman, and an admirably honest biographer. She admitted at the outset that she intended to do a job on Henry, but found out after meeting him that "Henry Miller was a very nice man." I believe hers is the book that relates how, when Miller learned that his wife Eve had died - and it had been a stormy marriage - he fell on his knees in his kitchen and just wept uncontrollably. As Somerset Maugham sagely observed, men are not of a piece. Blackguards can prove surprisingly sensitive at times, and genuine saints can often be mean and vicious.

Sorry, sort of ...

2012-01-27T20:00:00.000-05:00

.. Literary Apes Anonymous - Commentary Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Good advice ...

2012-01-27T19:53:00.000-05:00

... Making Time For Study | The Jewish Week.

Let's you and him fight ...

2012-01-27T19:00:00.000-05:00

... Alain de Botton reveals plans for 'temple to atheism' in heart of London | World news | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Back and forth ...

2012-01-27T18:00:00.000-05:00

... Faith that is known first in the body | Mark Vernon | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

... The modern believer is not suspicious enough.

A persistent pain is a pretty good indicator of the presence of bodily damage; the feeling that you have been touched by the Holy Spirit is only a good indicator that you have had a generic religious experience, shared by many the world over, and you have interpreted it according to the narratives and belief systems familiar to you.

Really? I should think "feeling that you have been touched by the Holy Spirit" would be rather an overwhelming experience. And experience trumps all theories. I would suggest that modern skeptics are not suspicious enough of pure reason.

More here: The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake - review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

We need a new mind-body paradigm, a map that acknowledges the many kinds of things there are in the world and the continuity of evolution. We must somehow find different, more realistic ways of understanding human beings – and indeed other animals – as the active wholes that they are, rather than pretending to see them as meaningless consignments of chemicals.

The value of secrecy ...

2012-01-27T17:00:00.000-05:00

... CS Lewis Rejected Royal Honor | Via Meadia.

Hmm ...

2012-01-27T16:00:00.000-05:00

... Curriculum Proposals at Stanford Focus on Critical Thinking - Curriculum - The Chronicle of Higher Education. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

How the hell does anyone manage to get admitted to Stanford - or any other college or university for that matter - without first displaying some acquaintance with "ways of thinking, ways of doing"?

Masculinity...

2012-01-27T15:45:00.000-05:00

...and Henry Miller. A new book on the topic.

Speaking of dissent ...

2012-01-27T15:00:00.001-05:00

... Timothy Snyder: On dissent and “the stories people tell about themselves” | The Book Haven.

Dissenting opinion ...

2012-01-27T14:00:00.000-05:00

... Sixteen Concerned Scientists: No Need to Panic About Global Warming - WSJ.com.

Also born today ...

2012-01-27T13:30:00.000-05:00

... in 1756: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Defending Updike ...

2012-01-27T13:00:00.000-05:00

... John Updike: The bizarre and misguided assault on his reputation. - Slate Magazine. (Hat tips, Dave Lull and Ed Champion.)

... his immense talent is part of what people seemed to find suspect about him in the years before his death. Critics and writers hold the fact that he writes beautiful sentences against him, as if his writing is too well crafted, too flamboyantly, extravagantly good. James Wood wrote a decade ago, “He is a prose writer of great beauty, but that prose confronts one with the question of whether beauty is enough, and whether beauty always conveys what a novelist must convey.” Here one has to wonder about that special handbook of “What a Novelist Must Convey,” and the rules and regulations contained therein.

Cold War thrillers ...

2012-01-27T12:30:00.000-05:00

... Paul Davis On Crime: Book Review: 'Agent 6' By Tom Rob Smith.

In this corner ...

2012-01-27T11:00:00.000-05:00

... James Earl Jones v. Chris Walken: A poetic Poe-down - The Globe and Mail.

Drawn in ...

2012-01-27T10:30:00.000-05:00

... When Falls the Coliseum - Lisa reads Other People’s Money by Justin Cartwright.

A fresh approach ...

2012-01-27T10:00:00.001-05:00

... Nonfiction Review: The Mindful Writer by Dinty W. Moore. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Cunning verbal music ...

2012-01-27T10:00:00.000-05:00

... Robert Graves's "John Milton Muddles Through" | The New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The genius of the English language, whether transplanted to Wales, Scotland, Ireland or America, remains literal, logical, and anti-hypothetical. No sensitive poet or critic can accept without a blush Milton’s pastoral affectations ...

Thought for the day ...

2012-01-27T09:00:00.000-05:00

One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.

- Lewis Carroll, born on this date in 1832

Apologies ..

2012-01-26T19:00:00.000-05:00

I am working on an article, the writing of which is not going well. I will - hack that I am - manage to deal with this eventually. But right now, things are not going well. I am annoyed with myself and the article. In other words, blogging will resume tomorrow. Writing, after all, is a job like any other.

Let us hope ...

2012-01-26T18:00:00.001-05:00

... Has plagiarism met its match? | Drexel Publishing Group.

I will try to help ...

2012-01-26T17:45:00.001-05:00

... Twitter / @BryanAppleyard: Ayn Rand is now a top app. ...

I wrote an article having something to do with this book a couple of years ago, so I had to read a good bit of it. Given the stilted dialogue (I think I am actually being kind) you would think it would have disappeared without a trace. But, like a good soap opera, the mechanics of the narrative are pretty well done. But the key point is that, when people read a book, if the book catches them, they put themselves into it. And many people, deep down - maybe even Bryan, maybe even me - want to be John Galt - if only briefly - just to be able to cry halt to the world we live in. Ayn Rand may not have known how to write literature, but she did, on some instinctive level, know how to create myth.

More than metaphor ...

2012-01-26T14:00:00.000-05:00

... Thinking Outside the Box — Literally - Ideas Market - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

A must-read ...

2012-01-26T13:00:00.000-05:00

... The Once and Future Liberalism - Walter Russell Mead - The American Interest Magazine.

One of the main reasons Americans have been so slow to recognize the collapse of the blue model is that the language we use to discuss and think about politics tends to disorganize our stock of understanding about our own society. Millions of Americans are conservatives and even reactionaries but think of themselves as “liberals”; at the same time, millions of genuine liberals and even radicals call themselves conservative. It’s an unholy mess that calls desperately for a language intervention.

Back-and-forth ...

2012-01-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

... Ping-Pong with Mortimer Adler - gentle rereader. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Barzun concludes – after presenting varied, ample and humorous evidence – that “the great books here gathered with so much love and care and public spirit betray a high-minded axe-grinding in the direction of intellectualism.” The future author ofThe House of Intellect did indeed write those words, but only after regretting that the first edition of Great Books missed the opportunity to “unite a great variety of intellectual interests by choosing from the recent times not only Freud but Shaw.” Barzun considers the collection unbalanced in a rationalistic direction: “Shouldn’t we have had … Balzac and Henry James—instead of Hippocrates on Hemorrhoids and Archimedes on Spheroids?”

Read and enter ...

2012-01-26T11:30:00.000-05:00

... A Story in Slang – and win a prize! - The Dabbler.

Dickensian reality ...

2012-01-26T11:00:00.000-05:00

... The American Conservative - Hard Times Again. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The February bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens, then, could hardly come at a more appropriate moment in economic history, for Dickens was the revealer, the scourge, the prose poet, of urban destitution—a destitution that, in our waking nightmares, we fear may yet return.

And the winner is ...

2012-01-26T10:30:00.000-05:00

... Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' takes top app prize - CSMonitor.com.

Property rights ...

2012-01-26T10:00:00.000-05:00

... Book Review: How to Fix Copyright - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Most reasonable people would agree that copyright terms are too long—70 years after the author's death, per a 1998 extension—and that some laws need to be re-examined for a digital world. But William Patry, a prolific and respected legal scholar who is now Google's senior copyright counsel, takes such a dim view of efforts to protect intellectual property that he seems somewhat uncomfortable with the very idea of a commercial market for creative work.

Thought for the day ...

2012-01-26T09:00:00.000-05:00

It has been rightly said that nothing is unimportant, nothing powerless in the universe; a single atom can dissolve everything, and save everything! What terror! There lies the eternal distinction between good and evil.

- Gerard de Nerval, who died on this date in 1855

Truck with Death...

2012-01-26T03:17:00.000-05:00

...Andrew Miller: my morbid obsession

RIP ...

2012-01-25T22:00:00.000-05:00

... Nicol Williamson - Telegraph.

Birthday girl ...

2012-01-25T21:00:00.000-05:00

... Virginia Woolf, Reading Over Dorothy Wordsworth’s Shoulder: A Birthday Tribute | Town Topics. (Hat tip, Virginia Kerr.)

Chill ...

2012-01-25T20:00:00.000-05:00

... The Slow and Mindful Reader - The Barnes & Noble Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In memoriam ...

2012-01-25T19:30:00.001-05:00

... Anecdotal Evidence: `Eager to Share What He Deemed Best'.

Come one, come all.

2012-01-25T19:30:00.000-05:00

... Dante and crowds | The Book Haven.

You're invited ...

2012-01-25T19:00:00.000-05:00

... Wrap-up Wednesday - The Globe and Mail.

Characteristically Andrew ...

2012-01-25T18:00:00.000-05:00

... which is to say, at turns obsessive and crazy, then brilliantly insightful: Ask Me Anything: What Do I Think Of The Book Publishing Industry? - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Usual suspects ...

2012-01-25T17:00:00.000-05:00

... Best American Opinion Page Essays? - BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog.

Have a look ...

2012-01-25T16:00:00.000-05:00

... dustingrella.com.

Hmm ...

2012-01-25T15:00:00.000-05:00

... The Danger of Ebooks. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

While it is true that you can go into a bookstore and buy a book with cash anonymously, you are just as likely to buy one from Amazon, thereby identifying yourself as the purchaser. Even in a bookstore, you are quite likely to buy the book with your credit card.

I'm as concerned over government intrusion as anyone, but I am not so sure that ebooks should be singled out for concern.

Rising above principle ...

2012-01-25T14:30:00.000-05:00

... The Breathtaking Hypocrisy of Julian Assange, Kremlin Pawn - Forbes.

Verse vs. versus ...

2012-01-25T14:00:00.000-05:00

... ‘Verse’ as a verb | Drexel Publishing Group.

Verse and versus do, in fact, derive from the same Latin verb: vertere, to turn. But they have quite different meanings, and shouldn't really be confused.

And the nomines are ...

2012-01-25T13:30:00.000-05:00

... 2012 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.

And the winner is ...

2012-01-25T13:00:00.000-05:00

... Costa book award: Andrew Miller wins for sixth novel, Pure | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Dave also sends along this: Short stories win their own Costa award.

Hmm ...

2012-01-25T12:00:00.000-05:00

... I Hate Religion Too - Strange Herring. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The problem with the Church as an institution is that its ministers are often more concerned with the Church as an institution than with the Church as a vehicle of faith.

Other people's quips ...

2012-01-25T11:36:00.001-05:00

... Two Great British ‘Quote Magnets’ - Ideas Market - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Not so fast ...

2012-01-25T11:00:00.000-05:00

... E-Book Bummer: Growth Slower Than Thought—‘Incremental, Not Exponential’ | paidContent. (Hat tip, Joseph Chovanes.)

FYI ...

2012-01-25T10:00:00.000-05:00

... Educational news.

Thought for the day ...

2012-01-25T09:00:00.000-05:00

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.

- W. Somerset Maugham, born on this date in 1874

Worth reading ...

2012-01-24T21:00:00.000-05:00

... Excerptation | The End Of The Pier Show.

Choices ...

2012-01-24T20:00:00.000-05:00

... Respect.

Oddly, I think it is self-respect - not respect for others - that is likely to keep people from stealing. Thanks to the Religious of the Sacred Heart, there are all sorts of things I would never think to do simply because gentlemen and ladies don't do those sorts of things. It is self-respect - or, if you will, self-regard -- that keeps me from even thinking of doing them

Proposals wanted ...

2012-01-24T19:00:00.000-05:00

... Project Areas - Triple Canopy.

Triple plays ...

2012-01-24T18:00:00.000-05:00

... AbeBooks: Omnibus Editions: Three (or More) Titles in One Volume.

Piece work ...

2012-01-24T16:00:00.000-05:00

... The Millions : Fragmentary: Writing in a Digital Age. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In case you wondered ...

2012-01-24T15:00:00.000-05:00

... Transmissions from a Lone Star: Scotland’s Bid for Independence Explained! | Columnists | RIA Novosti.

A surfeit of volumes ...

2012-01-24T14:00:00.000-05:00

... Books, books everywhere… | Drexel Publishing Group.

FYI ...

2012-01-24T13:30:00.000-05:00

... Adrian Mole recommends books for would-be writers - Telegraph.

Dr. Johnson at his best ...

2012-01-24T13:00:00.000-05:00

... The University Bookman: A New ‘Rasselas’. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Rasselas appeared at almost the same time as Candide, and for that reason, and because they are superficially alike in form and message, they have often been compared. Yet, as Boswell said, “though the proposition illustrated by both these works was the same, namely, that in our present state there is more evil than good, the intention of the writers was very different.” They indeed differ markedly in the effect they have upon the reader. “No good man is the better for having read Candide,” wrote Hilaire Belloc, “but every man is the better for having read Rasselas.”

A welcome development ...

2012-01-24T12:00:00.001-05:00

... Edward Feser: Maudlin on the philosophy of cosmology. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The claim that physics has shown that change is illusory is in any event seriously problematic. As Karl Popper noted, Einstein, as interpreted by Minkowski, recapitulates Parmenides. (See the essay “Beyond the Search for Invariants” in Popper’s book The World of Parmenides.) And that means that relativity, if interpreted as entailing the illusoriness of all change, would inherit all the problems with Parmenides’ position.

Take a look ...

2012-01-24T11:00:00.000-05:00

... at Claude Monet At Work | The New Republic.

Weigh in, folks ...

2012-01-24T10:00:00.000-05:00

... Monday MuseSplashes - The Globe and Mail.

Who, in your opinion, would you consider the English-language speaking world's top poetic dog? Stay with me, please, since the question's a little more germane and a tad less superficial than it might first appear to be.

Honored today

2012-01-24T09:30:00.000-05:00

... January 24 is the feast of St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalists, who said,
"Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly."

Thought for the day ...

2012-01-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

- Edith Wharton, born on this date in 1862

RIP ...

2012-01-23T18:00:00.000-05:00

... Pierre Sudreau - Telegraph.

He inspired The Little Prince.

Reading Henry Adams ...

2012-01-23T17:00:00.000-05:00

... Democracy: A Funny Town for a Woman | Mark Athitakis’ American Fiction Notes.

A new way of seeing ...

2012-01-23T16:00:00.000-05:00

... Bryan Appleyard - Fox Talbot’s Dream Square. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

A vintage review ...

2012-01-23T15:00:00.000-05:00

... Théophile Gautier's My Fantoms: Then and Now, 1976 | TLS.

Belmont vs. Fishtown ...

2012-01-23T14:00:00.000-05:00

... Charles Murray on the New American Divide - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The primary indicator of the erosion of industriousness in the working class is the increase of prime-age males with no more than a high school education who say they are not available for work—they are "out of the labor force." That percentage went from a low of 3% in 1968 to 12% in 2008. Twelve percent may not sound like much until you think about the men we're talking about: in the prime of their working lives, their 30s and 40s, when, according to hallowed American tradition, every American man is working or looking for work. Almost one out of eight now aren't. Meanwhile, not much has changed among males with college educations. Only 3% were out of the labor force in 2008.

Fishtown these days looks to be gentrifying (as is my own neighborhood). I come from the same social milieu that, in this essay, "Fishtown" is meant to represent.

Catching up ...

2012-01-23T13:00:00.000-05:00

... Paul Davis On Crime: Belated Happy Birthday To Joseph Wambaugh.

Look and listen ...

2012-01-23T12:00:00.000-05:00

... S.J. Perelman On Everything | The New Republic.

Doing and talking ...

2012-01-23T11:00:00.000-05:00

... and education: Chapter 7 Recall... | Facebook. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

A closer look ...

2012-01-23T10:30:00.000-05:00

... Anis Shivani: Can Creative Writing Be Taught? Therapy For The Disaffected Masses.

I just noticed that this essay appears in the current issue of Boulevard. I can't at the moment lay my hands on my copy of that issue, but the question posed is the subject of that issue's Symposium, to which I also contributed. And while my contribution wasn't as acerbic as Shivani's, I did arrive at a similar conclusion. I will not undercut Boulevard by posting what I wrote in its entirety, but here is an excerpt:

Youcan learn a lot from studying how your favorite writers do what theydo. But you must never do it yourself. It is perfectly all right tobe influenced by them, but the manner of the influence must beindirect, downright subterranean, in fact. The perfect example ofwhat I mean is provided by Dostoevsky, who modeled his novels onthose of his own favorite novelist — Charles Dickens. It is nothard to see what the two have in common, bizarrely vividcharacterization for one. But to get what Dostoyevsky got out ofDickens requires that one uniquely original sensibility genuinelyencounter another. It is the sort of thing that cannot be taught in aclassroom or workshop. ... Thereare things only life can teach you, and that you can only learn onyour own. Someone else can teach you how to write like somebody else.But nobody can teach you how to write like yourself.

In the meantime, the debate continues: Rebutting Shivani.

Interesting and moving ...

2012-01-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

Maverick Philosopher: Michael Sudduth Converts to Vaishnava Vedanta! (Hat tip, Dave Lull).

I should add, and I think this is very important, that I felt I was experiencing the same God that I had experienced on many occasions throughout my Christian life. However, I felt like this being was showing me a different face, side, or aspect to Himself, or – better yet – a different mode of my relationship to Him. I felt a certain validation of my spiritual journey, both past and present. I had gone so far in my Christian faith, but it was now necessary for me to relate to God as Lord Krishna.

I think that one can nourish one's faith with insights and practices from others. I also think that anything that helps one to sense God's love for us and that inspires us to requite as best we can is necessarily good.
Bill Vallicella has more on this here: Belief Change.

Thought for the day ...

2012-01-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

You don't have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.

- Walter M. Miller, Jr., born on this date in 1923

Sorry for the interruption ...

2012-01-22T22:00:00.000-05:00

Debbie and I had to take off to Mauricetown, N.J., yesterday afternoon to attend a dinner made the Colonial way in a large, open-hearth fireplace (more about that tomorrow). Anyway, what with the snow that had to be cleaned off the sidewalk and the car, and some shopping that had to be done, I had no time yesterday to mention here that I wasn't going to be posting for a while.
I've done a bit of blogging for today, but I am signing off until tomorrow.

Shameful void ...

2012-01-22T21:00:00.000-05:00

... Forgotten Writers: Dorothy Uhnak.

Maxine's been busy again ...

2012-01-22T20:00:00.000-05:00

... so just keep scrolling: Petrona | Mainly about reading with an accent on crime fiction from around the world.

Worth noting ...

2012-01-22T19:00:00.000-05:00

... 25 Things I Learned From Opening a Bookstore - jlsathre - Open Salon. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Genre-jumper ...

2012-01-22T18:00:00.000-05:00

Bryan Appleyard - Geoff Dyer: The Hatchet Man. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

... everything Dyer writes is a bit odd. He is a genre-jumper, primarily because he doesn’t believe in genres. He says, for example, that his ostensibly nonfiction book on photography, The Ongoing Moment (superb), “was much more of a novel than many of the books eligible for tthe Booker prize that year”. And he dislikes the typical nonfiction book that publishers love.

Still going strong ...

2012-01-22T17:00:00.000-05:00

... Paul Davis On Crime: Charles Dickens: A Tale Of Two Centuries.

And the nominees are ...

2012-01-22T16:29:00.000-05:00

... National Book Critics Circle: National Book Critics Circle Announces Finalists for Publishing Year 2011 - Critical Mass Blog. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Today's Inquirer reviews ...

2012-01-22T15:08:00.001-05:00

... Susan Balée reviews the latest Jo Nesbø: Evil afoot again in Norway.

... and Katie reviews Richard Burgin's latest: The scary spaces twixt men, women.

... 'Red State Religion': Why Kansas became so conservative.

Thought for the day ...

2012-01-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.

- Francis Bacon, born on this date in 1561

Albert Einstein

2012-01-22T01:47:00.003-05:00

My recent piece in the Portland Book Review addressing Josef Eisinger's Einstein on the Road has been posted online. Here's a link.

Where I live ...

2012-01-21T19:00:00.000-05:00

... The GOP’s Philadelphia Story | The Weekly Standard.

The author of this piece, Kevin Ferris, is a friend and former colleague.

In case you wondered ...

2012-01-21T18:00:00.000-05:00

... Why Geology Matters, Part 3 | Books and Culture.

Sounds prudent to me ...

2012-01-21T17:00:00.000-05:00

... Salman Rushdie Cancels Festival Appearance In India Due To Threats.

I agree ...

2012-01-21T16:00:00.000-05:00

... The best composer you've never heard of. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

He's certainly one of the best, though I can think of some others. Harold Boatrite, for instance.

More here: A good day's work.

Please help ...

2012-01-21T15:00:00.000-05:00

... Would someone give Anis Shivani a nice warm cup of milk? -BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog.

Books, Inq. — The Epilogue

"Both and" ...

Hmm ... hmmm ...

Not really ...

The value of fabricated truth ...

Authors' lairs ...

Muddled psychologizing ...

Indeed ...

Worried thoughts ...

Also born today ...

Thought for today ...

Hmm ...

Sorry, sort of ...

Good advice ...

Let's you and him fight ...

Back and forth ...

The value of secrecy ...

Hmm ...

Masculinity...

Speaking of dissent ...

Dissenting opinion ...

Also born today ...

Defending Updike ...

Cold War thrillers ...

Online now ...

In this corner ...

Drawn in ...

A fresh approach ...

Cunning verbal music ...

Thought for the day ...

Apologies ..

Let us hope ...

I will try to help ...

More than metaphor ...

A must-read ...

Back-and-forth ...

Read and enter ...

Dickensian reality ...

And the winner is ...

Property rights ...

Thought for the day ...

Truck with Death...

RIP ...

Birthday girl ...

Chill ...

In memoriam ...

Come one, come all.

You're invited ...

Characteristically Andrew ...

Usual suspects ...

Have a look ...

Hmm ...

Rising above principle ...

Verse vs. versus ...

And the nomines are ...

And the winner is ...

Hmm ...

Other people's quips ...

Not so fast ...

FYI ...

Thought for the day ...

Worth reading ...

Choices ...

Proposals wanted ...

Triple plays ...

Piece work ...

In case you wondered ...

A surfeit of volumes ...

FYI ...

Dr. Johnson at his best ...

A welcome development ...

Take a look ...

Weigh in, folks ...

Honored today

Thought for the day ...

RIP ...

Reading Henry Adams ...

A new way of seeing ...

A vintage review ...

Belmont vs. Fishtown ...