My Own Private Book Club

Impressive E-Reader Library

2012-02-01T10:12:00.000-05:00

20 Common Grammar Mistakes That (Almost) Everyone Gets Wrong

2012-01-31T22:32:00.001-05:00

20 common grammar mistakes John Gingerich sees, not only in editorial queries and submissions, but in print: in HR manuals, blogs, magazines, newspapers, trade journals, and even best selling novels. I'm bookmarking this post for future reference.

Moot

Contrary to common misuse, “moot” doesn’t imply something is superfluous. It means a subject is disputable or open to discussion. e.g., The idea that commercial zoning should be allowed in the residential neighborhood was a moot point for the council.

Continual and Continuous

They’re similar, but there’s a clear difference. “Continual” means something that's always occurring, with obvious intervals. “Continuous” means something that continues without any stops or significant intervals in between. e.g., The continual music made it the worst night of sleep ever. e.g., Her continuous talking drove him crazy.

See more at LitReactor

The London Library After the Blitz

2012-01-31T21:32:00.000-05:00

Some 6 million rare books burned down in the fire that raged through the bookmaker’s district near St. Paul’s after an air raid struck it.

Via Nag on the Lake

Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments for Writing

2012-01-31T12:27:00.000-05:00

1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to “Black Spring.”
3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5. When you can’t create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

Via Flavorwire

I’m telling you for the last time…

2012-01-31T12:04:00.001-05:00

Via Violins and Starships

Book collecting

2012-01-31T12:01:00.000-05:00

Yeah, tell me about it.

“ Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it. Those who do not do it, think of it as a cousin of stamp collecting, a sister of the trophy cabinet, bastard of a sound bank account and a weak mind."

— Jeanette Winterson (via tacit-delinquency)

Dogs in Books: An Illustrated History

2012-01-31T11:56:00.000-05:00

Dogs In Books: A Celebration of Dog Illustration Through the Ages.

From The Brothers Grimm to Lassie, or what Victorian limericks have to do with Ancient Greece.

More at Brainpickings

Books For Tall People

2012-01-31T10:32:00.000-05:00

Blog on a Toothpick

Reading Kills

2012-01-28T22:46:00.000-05:00

Reading Kills from Beto Gomez on Vimeo.

Via Blort

Palestinian bookshop owner celebrates Jerusalem residency ruling

2012-01-28T09:22:00.000-05:00

Inside the American Colony hotel in Jerusalem where Munther Fahmi has his bookshop.
Photograph: Dan Balilty/AP

The Palestinian owner of an celebrated Jerusalem bookshop patronised by politicians, diplomats, authors and activists has won a rare victory in a six-year battle to be allowed to remain in the city of his birth.
Read more at guardian.co.uk

A Noirish Poem by Hilary S. Jacqmin | The Awl

2012-01-26T21:13:00.000-05:00

The Girl Detective

"'So, it’s come to that,' she said. 'You’re jealous of policemen.'"
—Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man

The girl detective does not date
She sits at home eating a piece of devil’s food cake
with red frosting She sits at home
with a pregnancy test
Icebox light slats the kitchenette

The girl detective rolls seamed stockings down
one at a time, slips off her crepe de chine
and navy pumps In dotted swiss pajamas
she yanks out the lousy Murphy bed
flips on her hot-bulb Hawaiian lamp
the hula dancer’s pampas skirt sways
hips like lava skin like kola nut

The girl detective sets her honey hair
in frozen orange juice cans
She double-checks
her clutch purse for Sweetheart tweezers, compact, blush
then badge and gun

Foundation caramelizes in her vanity mirror
a bullet lipstick ricochets
across the room The girl detective dreams
of handcuffs slanted grillework
lost keys and prison movies where the girls
are Lana Turner blond

All her exes broke
the law or moved to Hollywood
in search of starlets sunglass swimming pools
palm trees and palisades
green velvet theatres sinking into mossy film noir

The girl detective keeps a corkscrew handy
things always do go south it’s best to be prepared

Via The Awl

Breakdown Of A Murakami Novel

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

paperbackgirl

Secret Bookcase

2012-01-25T17:11:00.001-05:00

Cereal with a Fork

Poe Toaster a No-Show For Third Year

2012-01-20T13:47:00.001-05:00

For the third year in a row, the “Poe Toaster” -- who regularly marked the birth of Edgar Allan Poe with a tribute of three roses and cognac -- failed to make the nocturnal trip to the writer’s original grave in Baltimore, thus apparently ending a tradition that lasted more than half a century.

Via The Daily Undertaker

Try It. You Might Like it.

2012-01-20T13:37:00.002-05:00

DOGHOUSE

Tucson schools bans books by Chicano and Native American authors | the narcosphere

2012-01-16T08:14:00.000-05:00

TUCSON -- Outrage was the response to the news that Tucson schools has banned books, including "Rethinking Columbus," with an essay by award-winning Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko, who lives in Tucson, and works by Buffy Sainte Marie, Winona LaDuke, Leonard Peltier and Rigoberta Menchu.

Paula Swisher's Beautiful Birds in Books

2012-01-15T08:51:00.001-05:00

Pennsylvania artist and designer Paula Swisher takes doodling in the margins of old engineering and science manuals to new heights. She began the illustrations using nothing but ballpoint pen and white-out similar to Mark Powell’s envelopes, but soon explored new materials including colored pencil, gouache and other mixed media like thread and cut-out paper.

Via Colossal

Margaret Atwood's flying rabbits

2012-01-13T22:07:00.000-05:00

The Uneasy Partnership of Pauline Kael and Penelope Gilliatt

2012-01-13T10:47:00.001-05:00

Gilliatt's precarious state may explain why Shawn so badly handled the scandal that ended her film critic tenure in 1979. Assigned to profile Graham Greene, Gilliatt, briefly full-time since Kael left for an ill-fated stint as a Hollywood producer, turned in a draft that a young fact-checker named Peter Canby flagged for lifting material from previously published work. (Canby now oversees the storied fact-checking department.) Brushing the warnings aside, Shawn published Gilliatt's piece, which is when Michael Mewshaw realized she'd pilfered more than 800 words of his own Greene profile from The Nation. As he recounted in his 2003 memoir Do I Owe You Something? Mewshaw complained to Shawn, who blamed the plagiarism on Gilliatt's alcohol problem and said public excoriation would drive her to the brink. Mewshaw took Shawn's offer of $2,000 and a private letter of apology, but the news got out to the New York Times that May, leaving Shawn in an embarrassing position—and vulnerable to Kael's successful demand for full-time status.

Slate Magazine Via The Awl

I know, Mother, I know

2012-01-12T10:44:00.000-05:00

In 1969, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Sexton wrote the following, overwhelmingly heartfelt letter to her 15-year-old daughter, Linda, after battling mental illness for much of her adult life; a battle, in fact, that saw her take up poetry on the advice of her therapist. Sadly, just five years after this emotional missive was penned, Anne took her own life. She was 45-years-old.

Wed — 2:45 P.M.
Dear Linda,
I am in the middle of a flight to St. Louis to give a reading. I was reading a New Yorker story that made me think of my mother and all alone in the seat I whispered to her "I know, Mother, I know." (Found a pen!) And I thought of you — someday flying somewhere all alone and me dead perhaps and you wishing to speak to me.

The Autumn of Joan Didion

2012-01-11T21:22:00.000-05:00

The Autumn of Joan Didion - Magazine - The Atlantic

Ernest Hemingway First edition

2012-01-11T10:27:00.001-05:00

This copy of Hemingway’s first book claims singularity by its provenance: it was this volume that Hemingway sent to Edmund Wilson in November 1923, asking for a review in The Dial. The book had appeared in Paris, where Hemingway was already well known in expatriate circles but had made little noise in the United States. Wilson read it immediately and responded warmly with a review that helped to make the young writer’s reputation.

Uncertain Times

Organizing the Bookcase

2012-01-11T09:16:00.000-05:00

Books That Should Be Movies

2012-01-10T09:10:00.001-05:00

For every book that's been made into a film, there are thousands just waiting in literature limbo for someone to give them some cinematic love. There are some good suggestions made here. I have always thought that A Confederacy of Dunces would make an excellent film and I heard somewhere that John Candy was considering making the film and casting himself as Ignatius. I also think Oryx and Crake would translate well to the screen.

See more at this Link Via Nag on the Lake

In The Night Bookstore

2012-01-09T18:21:00.000-05:00

Via The Awl

Plumber bookshelves

2012-01-09T09:07:00.001-05:00

Recyclart

Plotto: The art of mechanized storytelling

2012-01-07T10:14:00.000-05:00

Plotto, reissued last month by Tin House, was a manual that aimed to mechanize the entire narrative trade. In his introduction, Paul Collins recognizes that Cook was something of a plot machine himself, once writing fifty-four novels in a year, more than one a week. Cook’s methods were developed into a Plotto Studio of Authorship in New York City, his book hailed as “an invention which reduces literature to an exact science.”

More at Brain Pickings

Writing Better Social Letters (1950)

2012-01-07T09:44:00.001-05:00

While a teenage brother and sister write a thank-you note to their grandmother after visiting her on vacation, we learn the five parts of a friendly letter and more about why and how to write one.

Via coisas do arco da velha

Sarah Polley to adapt Atwood novel

2012-01-05T08:50:00.000-05:00

Sarah Polley is one step closer to bringing Margaret Atwood’s 1996 novel Alias Grace to the big screen.

More at Quill & Quire

Classic Book Covers Updated with Cats

2012-01-03T18:53:00.000-05:00

AbeBooks editors have imagined the plots of classic books if they had been written about cats, and best of all, delivered kitty-ized covers to go with them.

More at Flavorwire

Contradictory Proverbs

2012-01-03T10:38:00.000-05:00

Look before you leap.
He who hesitates is lost.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Out of sight, out of mind.

You’re never too old to learn.
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Many more at Futility Closet

Wrap Up With A Page

2011-12-30T20:13:00.001-05:00

Let everyone know about your great taste in books by wrapping a page of one around your neck.

Libraryland

The Year's Best Humor Writing 2011

2011-12-29T18:04:00.000-05:00

Rebecca O'Neal has compiled a list of humour pieces at Splitsider if you're looking for a chuckle or two.

Inside Maurice Sendak's Idiosyncratic, Infinitely Creative Mind

2011-12-29T09:34:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wondered why Maurice Sendak didn't write a sequel to Where The Wild Things Are ? Because he's not a whore, that's why. Now go to hell.

Brain Pickings

Top 10 graphic novels of 2011

2011-12-27T09:46:00.000-05:00

The Star's graphic novel and comic book expert, Jonathan P. Kuehlein, chooses the best of 2011, including a couple of Canadian favorites.

More at thestar.com

Kid Literary Characters and Their Grown-Up Counterparts

2011-12-26T17:29:00.001-05:00

Huckleberry Finn and Dean Moriarty

Max and Don Quixote

Tintin and Philip Marlowe

More at Flavorwire

Incredible Book Sculptures

2011-12-24T15:39:00.000-05:00

Via Cakehead Loves Evil

"I can't stop acquiring books..."

2011-12-20T12:32:00.000-05:00

Duncan Fallowell's library.

Via MetaFilter

Move Your Story Right Along: The Elements of Style Rap

2011-12-20T12:07:00.000-05:00

The Elements of Style from Jake Heller on Vimeo.

Brain Pickings

How To Write A Satirical Pop Culture Book Sold At Urban Outfitters

2011-12-19T22:31:00.000-05:00

More at The Awl

The Best Food Books of 2011

2011-12-19T09:42:00.001-05:00

The Recipe Project: A Delectable Extravaganza of Food and Music, presented a delightful and nerdy treat for the foodie-musicologist, transforming delicious recipes into singable, danceable songs.

It's one of the food books chosen by Brain Pickings as the best of 2011.

BOOK CLOCK

2011-12-18T10:01:00.000-05:00

A gift for a friend who likes books.

UncommonGoods

10 Legendary Haunts of Artists and Writers

2011-12-17T17:05:00.003-05:00

I've been to all of the Paris locations. I would have added the Algonquin in NYC to this list.

See the haunts at Flavorwire

Blue Nights

2011-12-16T18:06:00.004-05:00

Blue Nights is a book about tragedy, guilt, grief and love. Joan Didion's adopted daughter, Quintana Roo, became ill, suffered a brain hemorrhage and died at the age of 39. In this slim volume Didion tries to work through the early death of her daughter, residual grief from the loss of her husband just 20 months before (the subject of an earlier memoir The Year Of Magical Thinking) as well as her own lonely descent into old age, the reality of which seems to have come upon her out of nowhere. The book is a mantra of mourning for her daughter and her own youth. The blue nights of the title are the long twilight hours before the summer solstice, right before darkness falls.

Did all this misfortune occur because she wasn't a good enough mother? Didion lays out a lot of information about her daughter's childhood anxiety, her nightmares, her precociousness (at age five she called a psychiatric hospital to ask what to do if she went crazy). We learn that from birth Quintana was clothed in high priced designer apparel, that she developed a taste for caviar, that she drank Shirley Temples in expensive hotels and signed for them herself, that Didion took her to disturbing adult films when she was still a preschooler and that after trying unsuccessfully to pull Quintana's first baby tooth Didion was prepared to take her to the emergency room. We know that Quintana was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a troubling diagnosis that can only have come after years of familial misery but we are not privy to any of that. Hints are dropped but we don't know how debilitating Quintana's depression, anxiety and alcohol abuse were. We see only the pieces of Quintana that Didion's memory allows us to see. "Was I the problem? Was I always the problem?" Didion asks.

She shifts her focus from maternal guilt to her own mortality, from the life lost to the life left behind. Her physical health is deteriorating, she appears to be alone in the world and cannot come up with the name of a single friend or relative to contact in case of emergency. Her vulnerability is heart wrenching. She has lost her husband, she has lost her daughter but in the end "the fear is about what is still to be lost."

This is a difficult book to read and although it is not sentimental I was left aching when I finished it.

Judgmental Bookseller Ostrich Meme

2011-12-15T09:15:00.000-05:00

Via Nag on the Lake

Cool Bookends

2011-12-12T11:36:00.000-05:00

These are cool enough to make people buy books again.

More at Now That's Nifty

Christmas Tree for Book Lovers

2011-12-11T17:31:00.000-05:00

My Modern Metropolis

Leaf through a library on your next trip

2011-12-11T08:33:00.000-05:00

Itineraries cites five libraries worth a visit while you're traveling. Trinity College Library is on my Dublin to do list so I'll likely be checking out The Book Of Kells in April.

Hey girl. I like the library too.

2011-12-10T11:54:00.000-05:00

Ryan Gosling, library and librarian lover.

link Via Blort

Anglo-Saxon - The History of English

2011-12-06T11:30:00.000-05:00

Freedom

2011-12-03T21:13:00.003-05:00

Jonathan Franzen's most recent novel addresses social, gender and political issues and shows great attention to and appreciation of the lives of ordinary people, at least those of baby boomer mid-westerners. Patty Berglund, a college basketball star turned homemaker, is the "autobiographer". She tells the story of her marriage to Walter, a decent, intelligent, adoring but dull environmental lawyer, her ongoing attraction to his more dangerous minor rock star friend, Richard, and her fractious relationships with her son and daughter and her own parents and siblings. Franzen is sympathetic to Patty's flaws and sensitive to her inner conflicts, the emotional neglect visited upon her by her parents, over-the-top rivalries with her siblings, her guilt about her considerable shortcomings as a wife and mother. From the outside the Bergland family's existence looks idyllic but of course it's not. Familial tension resonates throughout this novel. Walter becomes totally wrapped up in his work. Much beloved teenaged son, Joey, chafing under Patty's smothering attention, becomes rebellious and moves in with his girlfriend's redneck family. Patty starts drinking too much.

This book explores the limits on personal freedom within a "free" society. There are always family and cultural responsibilities that limit our freedom and living the way one chooses comes with a price tag. If Walter wants to save songbirds he has to make some ugly compromises. Joey won't become the successful, wealthy Republican he yearns to be without making moral accommodations. Patty tries to be the super mum her mother never was but in doing so forfeits self-fulfillment.

Franzen has painted a vivid picture of the travails experienced by the middle class American family set against a backdrop of environmental degradation, the Iraq War and a culture of greed. I had high expectations of Freedom. It didn't let me down.

Sartalics, Type It Like You Mean It

2011-12-01T09:19:00.000-05:00

Left leaning type that shows when you are being sarcastic.

Link -Via Nag on the Lake

Old French Fairy Tales

2011-11-28T16:23:00.000-05:00

Virginia Frances Sterrett (1900–1931) managed to complete just three books in her short life, all of them commissioned by the Penn Publishing Company: Old French Fairy Tales (1920), Tanglewood Tales (1921), and Arabian Nights (1928). She was diagnosed with tuberculosis at the age of 19, around the time she received that first commission.

Although she lived a rather prosaic life in Missouri she created landscapes from her own vivid imagination that are beautifully exotic.

Read more at 50 Watts where you'll find more links to Sterrett's life and work.

Thanks Bruce!

Night Journey

2011-11-27T11:09:00.000-05:00

Via 3quarksdaily

The Globe's 100 best books of 2011

2011-11-27T09:26:00.001-05:00

My to-read list has just ballooned into something unmanageable. The Globe and Mail sorts the year's best books into 4 categories: poetry, Canadian fiction, foreign fiction and non-fiction.

I look forward to reading some Canadian fiction:

Better Living Through Plastic Explosives by Zsuzsi Gartner

Alone In the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay

Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee

The Antagonist by Lynn Coady

Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan.

I'm also adding some foreign fiction to my list:

The Empty Family by Colm Toibin

Bullfighting by Roddy Doyle

The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright

Disaster Was My God by Bruce Duffy

Some non-fiction too:

Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso

Who Killed Mom? by Steve Burgess

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

The Beautiful and the Damned by Siddhartha Deb

Blue Nights by Joan Didion

Looks like I'm going to have a busy year!

Little Prince Shoes.

2011-11-25T09:20:00.000-05:00

Libraryland

Pinky, the Literary Consultant

2011-11-22T08:28:00.000-05:00

Pinky can't read. Doesn't talk much. Yet, she's one of the best literacy consultants at Prince Philip Public School.
Not only that, she works pretty much for free, except, of course, for the odd Milkbone.
The seven-year-old white Boxer with a face distinguished by its folds of surplus skin, has exactly what kids who struggle with reading need.
She's a good listener. She doesn't judge. And she's cute to boot.

I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen -...

2011-11-21T09:38:00.000-05:00

Via Libraryland

The LA Public Library’s 1928 bookmobile for the sick.

2011-11-19T19:41:00.000-05:00

Via coisas do arco da velha

Where 15 Cultural Icons Laid Their Heads

2011-11-18T15:06:00.000-05:00

Flavorwire takes us inside the bedrooms of 15 cultural icons. Some are rather surprising, like Frank Sinatra's orange bedroom or Andy Warhol's elaborate sleeping quarters. What is not surprising is that Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf took their lives after sleeping in the cramped dim cells below.

Sylvia Plath's temporary digs at the Barbizon Hotel For Women

Where Virginia Woolf slept.

Emily Dickinson's only surviving dress

2011-11-17T17:16:00.000-05:00

Collection of the Amherst Historical Society in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Via bookofjoe

Literary Devices

2011-11-17T09:42:00.001-05:00

Via Laughing Squid

Sir Terry Pratchett Comes to Terms with His Death

2011-11-17T09:19:00.001-05:00

In 2008, having just turned 62, beloved fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s. Three years later, he began the process to take his own life.

Terry Pratchett - Choosing to die from Lisette Leona on Vimeo.

Brain Pickings

Written? Kitten!

2011-11-16T20:53:00.000-05:00

Writer's block? Written? Kitten! rewards you with a kitten for every 100 words you write.

Via

Grammar and Puctuation Jokes

2011-11-16T20:34:00.001-05:00

Libraryland

1949 Candy Retailer Book

2011-11-15T10:57:00.000-05:00

Some of these sweets have stood the test of time and are still being eaten by kids today.

Candy Retailer Book Via Blort

Orwell vs. Huxley

2011-11-14T23:17:00.000-05:00

A graphic that examines the ways in which each author’s predictions have come true over the past few years.

click for bigger image

Via Flavorwire

The Books They Gave Me

2011-11-11T11:14:00.000-05:00

The Books They Gave Me is a blog that invites readers to contribute reflections on books given to them by lovers.

Via

Dress made from a German edition of Heidi

2011-11-11T10:54:00.000-05:00

Via Libraryland

Wish You Were Here

2011-11-07T13:18:00.004-05:00

Why is Jack Luxton sitting on a bed with a loaded shotgun, waiting for his wife, Ellie, to come home? It takes author Graham Swift a long while to reveal the details. Wish You Were Here is about attachment to the land, to tradition and to family. It is about death: dead cows, dead soldiers, dead family. It is about loss. Jack Luxton, Devon farmer turned trailer park owner, is on his way to repatriate the body of his brother and then back to his home town to see him buried. Against a backdrop of mad cow disease, foot and mouth disease, the World Trade Centre attacks and the war in Iraq he ruminates on the events that have brought him here. Swift's pace is actually not so swift and at times I found myself impatient, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but in the end the calm and steady pace of the story makes it all the more appealing. The passages describing his close relationship with his mother who died too young, the death of his dear dog, his love for his younger brother who left home to join the army as soon as he was old enough are touchingly tender.

What drives the novel is our curiosity about what motivates large, inarticulate, emotionally limited Jack to hole up in his house with a gun waiting for his wife and/or police. Nothing much, as it turns out.

Wish You Were Here explores the powerful themes of violence and loss in a very quiet way and if the ending seems anti-climactic it's because it's best that way.

Goodnight Moon Revisited

2011-11-07T10:50:00.000-05:00

Via Nag on the Lake

Alice In Wonderland

2011-11-06T08:32:00.001-05:00

Alice Liddell disguised as a street urchin — hand-tinted by Lewis Carroll. Isn't it lovely?

Link Via Human Under Construction

State of Wonder

2011-11-05T22:09:00.004-04:00

I like Ann Patchett's writing. When I was looking for books to read on vacation I knew State of Wonder would be perfect.

The setting for most of the story is the Amazon, a place I learned to fear in childhood after watching too many movies featuring poisonous snakes, ferocious beasts, giant insects, quicksand and other perils of the jungle. Researcher Marina Singh is sent there by the pharmaceutical company she works for. Her mission is to follow up on a vague message sent by one of her former professors, the irascible but brilliant Dr. Annick Swenson, informing the company that a colleague of Marina's has died of fever while checking up on Swenson's project in the Amazon jungle. There are many unanswered questions about the man's death and about the progress of Swenson's company funded research. Marina is charged with getting to the bottom of things.

Swenson is a maverick, at first elusive and, once located, imperious and uncooperative. Marina hopes the assignment will be a quick one. She has no wish to remain away from home any longer than is absolutely necessary because she is taking anti-malarial medication that gives her terrifying nightmares. At first Dr. Swenson is anxious to send Marina packing but changes her mind when she realizes Marina's medical background might prove useful.

Swenson is researching a tribe whose females remain fertile all their lives. She is developing a drug that could extend the fertility of women like Marina who is in her forties and has delayed childbearing. Swenson is dedicated to her research. The full extent of her dedication and the nature of her relationship with Marina are revealed quite late in the novel.

At times this Heart of Darkness tale goes over the top - at one point there is hand to hand combat with an anaconda. That said, it raises moral and ethical issues that give the reader plenty of food for thought. It also reinforces my view that the jungle is a terrifying place, best avoided.

Room

2011-11-05T21:20:00.003-04:00

Room by Emma Donoghue packs a wallop. I circled around the book for a bit, leery of the unpleasant subject matter, much as I'd felt about The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. After much approach/avoidance I finally settled down to read it and found there was nothing to be afraid of.

Jack, the narrator, is five years old. He lives in a room with his Ma. It is not large, 11 by 11 feet, lit by a skylight, with just a few pieces of furniture but this is the only world Jack knows. Old Nick is their only visitor and Jack remains hidden in the wardrobe when Nick is in the room.We learn that Jack's mother was kidnapped by Old Nick when she was a teenager and has been held captive in this room for seven years.

The premise is a sensational one that could easily go off the rails but it doesn't. Donoghue uses restraint and we are able to believe that this is how a mother and child might behave under such extraordinary circumstances. Jack is engaging, Ma is brave. She loves and nurtures Jack and provides him with intellectual and physical stimulation while waiting for the time when they can make their "Great Escape".

The book is at once funny, disturbing and hopeful and this young mother's ferocious love for her son is incredibly moving. I read it in one sitting, couldn't put it down.

The Monster In The Box

2011-11-05T20:03:00.005-04:00

I started this blog to help me remember what I've read. Over the past month I've read rather a lot but put off writing about it because I've been in Spain and without internet much of the time but I've procrastinated long enough. I started off with Monster In The Box. When I can't decide what to read I pull an unread Ruth Rendell off the shelf because I know that, although it might not blow me away, I will not be disappointed. I'd just heard that George Baker, the quintessential Wexford, had died and this news had me thinking fondly of that gentlemanly detective.

The story begins long ago when Wexford was a young police officer and in the course of assisting in a murder investigation encountered a man named Eric Targo. Although he had no proof, Wexford was certain that Targo had something to do with the murder. When there is a second murder with no leads Wexford maintains that Targo is to blame. His supervisors discouraged him from pursuing this line of investigation and he was forced to put his obsession with Targo away.

Some years later Targo reappears in the area, yet another murder occurs and Wexford is convinced that he is dealing with a serial killer. However his associate, Mike Burden, is skeptical.
Over several chapters Wexford relates the history of his suspicions to Burden. We also get an unusual glimpse of Wexford's early life including the beginning of his relationship with his future wife, Dora.

Another parallel plot is the story of an Asian girl who disappears mysteriously. Jenny Burden, who is a teacher, and Wexford's colleague, Hannah Goldsmith have concerns that the girl was being forced into an arranged marriage by her family.

In the end all the strands are woven together; Wexford's instincts are proven right and he can finally put the monster, Targo, in a box for good. There are the usual Rendell twists and turns thrown in to make this a worthwhile read.

Wexford seems much older and his health is less than robust. This coupled with the look back at his life and career make one wonder if this might be the last of the Wexford series. If so it would be a pity.

Changing lightbulbs in the literary universe

2011-11-05T08:46:00.000-04:00

How many mystery writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Two. One to screw it in almost all the way in and the other to give it a suprising twist at the end.

How many writers does it take to change a light bulb?
Two. One to change the bulb and one to tell a long story about it.

How many literary critics does it take to change a light bulb?
Literary critics don't know how, but rest assured they'll find something wrong with the way you do it.

See more at Miss Cellania

Red Wagon Bookshelf Mod

2011-11-04T20:49:00.000-04:00

I'd need a lot of red wagons to hold my books - at least a hundred.
Fancy

I Really Have Been Reading, Honest!

2011-11-03T01:18:00.000-04:00

You probably think that I don't read anymore because I haven't posted any reviews but that is not the case. Truth is I read up a storm while I was in Spain - 5 books in just a few weeks! It's amazing how much time one has when traveling on planes and trains and, more to the point, being internet deprived for days on end. Now my challenge is to remember what I read and to get it all down here. Stay tuned.

10 Favorite Memoirs of Loss

2011-11-02T11:05:00.000-04:00

Literary Mortuary

2011-11-02T07:50:00.001-04:00

It will be the world's most literary mortuary.
Ten leading crime writers are competing for the honour of having a morgue named after them. Scotland's University of Dundee said Monday it will name its new morgue and research facility after whichever writer gets the most votes in an online poll and fundraising effort. Kathy Reichs, Lee Child, Tess Gerritsen, Harlan Coben, Mark Billingham and Val McDermid are among the authors taking part in the "Million For A Morgue campaign.

I'd donate if Ruth Rendell were on the list.

Books

2011-11-01T21:17:00.000-04:00

Libraryland

November

2011-11-01T20:52:00.000-04:00

No sun — no moon!
No morn — no noon –
No dawn — no dusk — no proper time of day –

No sky — no earthly view –
No distance looking blue –
No road — no street — no “t’other side the way ” –

No end to any Row –
No indications where the Crescents go –
No top to any steeple –
No recognitions of familiar people –

No courtesies for showing ‘em –
No knowing ‘em!
No travelling at all — no locomotion,
No inkling of the way — no notion –

“No go” — by land or ocean –
No mail — no post –
No news from any foreign coast –
No park — no ring — no afternoon gentility –

No company — no nobility –
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member –
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,

November!

– Thomas Hood, in The Book of Days, 1832

Lifted from Futility Closet

Tom Waits reads Charles Bukowski

2011-10-31T22:53:00.000-04:00

Christmas Gift For Rich Morons

2011-10-31T08:36:00.000-04:00

$125,000 "bespoke library" from the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book.
Read about it at Boing Boing

Hemingway Comix

2011-10-28T17:27:00.000-04:00

Via The Queen is not Amused...but I am.

French Movie

2011-10-28T13:33:00.001-04:00

French Movie from Scott Wenner

A poem by David Lehman presented as a noirish animated short.

Via The Curious Brain

My Faraway One: The Love Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz

2011-10-28T13:20:00.000-04:00

650 meticulously selected and annotated letters exchanged between one of the most prominent couples in art history, photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) and legendary artistGeorgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), who over the course of their 30-year romance exchanged more than 5,000 letters — roughly 25,000 pages — on everything from the rich detail of their daily lives to the breathless angels and demons of their passion.

Brain Pickings

carolynkellogg: Ernest Hemingway’s 1923...

2011-10-26T20:43:00.001-04:00

He looks so much better without the facial hair. Gorgeous in fact.

Libraryland

Tough Guys Recite: The 5 Best Poetry Spittin' TV Characters

2011-10-26T12:39:00.001-04:00

While preparing for the upcoming video conference The Poetry and Poetics of Popular Culture (11-12 November 2011), Retro Remote naturally started thinking about all those TV heroes of the past still flickering through his static-filled brain, and one question always came to mind:
How did they know all that poetry that they could easily recite at the drop of a hat—or the draw of a gun?

More at PopMatters

R.I.P. Wexford

2011-10-09T09:18:00.000-04:00

He was, according to Ruth Rendell, ‘not just an unforgettable actor, but the most wonderfully warm and vibrant person’.
She created George Baker’s most famous role, the affable, homely Inspector Wexford, in 23 novels written over four decades.
But it is Baker, who on Friday died of pneumonia aged 80, whom the crime author credits with turning her character into one of Britain’s best-loved fictional detectives through his performance in The Ruth Rendell Mysteries.

The last book I read was Rendell's The Monster In The Box featuring Inspector Wexford.

Read more here

A Visual History of Literary References on 'The Simpsons'

2011-09-29T23:23:00.000-04:00

From The Bell Jar to Moneyball, from Gore Vidal to Tom Wolfe, countless books and authors have guest-starred on America's longest-running sitcom

More at The Atlantic

Fireplace tiles inspired Lewis Carroll

2011-09-29T22:33:00.000-04:00

Many of the characters in Lewis Carroll’s stories were suggested by the illustrated tiles that decorated the fireplace in his study at Christ Church, Oxford.

Via Futility Closet

Edgar Allan Poe's writing process

2011-09-28T07:58:00.000-04:00

Via John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

Lovely Bookshelf

2011-09-22T21:20:00.000-04:00

Book. Book. Book.

Is That A Fish In Your Ear?

2011-09-22T07:40:00.000-04:00

Is That a Fish in Your Ear? ranges across the whole of human experience, from foreign films to philosophy, to show why translation is at the heart of what we do and who we are. What's the difference between translating unprepared natural speech, and translating Madame Bovary? How do you translate a joke?

Muse Per Gioco

Tales for Little Rebels

2011-09-20T10:25:00.001-04:00

Rather than teaching children to obey authority, to conform, or to seek redemption through prayer, twentieth-century leftists encouraged children to question the authority of those in power. Tales for Little Rebels collects forty-three mostly out-of-print stories, poems, comic strips, primers, and other texts for children that embody this radical tradition.

Via

Things We Say Today Which We Owe To Shakespeare

2011-09-13T23:40:00.001-04:00

run - Via My Rusty Sieve

How To Open A New Book

2011-09-13T07:53:00.001-04:00

Via A London Salmagundi

Shift dropped on author after typo in her romantic novel

2011-09-12T22:06:00.000-04:00

"I apologise to anyone who bought my on-sale ebook of Baby, I'm Yours and read on pg 293: 'He stiffened for a moment but then she felt his muscles loosen as he shitted on the ground'," says Andersen. "Shifted - he SHIFTED! I just cringe when I think of the readers who have read this. Hopefully, it's only in the iBook version that I bought, but if it's in yours as well, please let me know. I've contacted the editor and pray this will be promptly fixed. Too late for us...but for Gawd's sake."

guardian.co.uk - Via Coudal

My Own Private Book Club

Impressive E-Reader Library

20 Common Grammar Mistakes That (Almost) Everyone Gets Wrong

The London Library After the Blitz

Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments for Writing

I’m telling you for the last time…

Book collecting

Dogs in Books: An Illustrated History

Books For Tall People

Reading Kills

Palestinian bookshop owner celebrates Jerusalem residency ruling

A Noirish Poem by Hilary S. Jacqmin | The Awl

Breakdown Of A Murakami Novel

Secret Bookcase

Poe Toaster a No-Show For Third Year

Try It. You Might Like it.

Tucson schools bans books by Chicano and Native American authors | the narcosphere

Paula Swisher's Beautiful Birds in Books

Margaret Atwood's flying rabbits

The Uneasy Partnership of Pauline Kael and Penelope Gilliatt

I know, Mother, I know

The Autumn of Joan Didion

Ernest Hemingway First edition

Organizing the Bookcase

Books That Should Be Movies

In The Night Bookstore

Plumber bookshelves

Plotto: The art of mechanized storytelling

Writing Better Social Letters (1950)

Sarah Polley to adapt Atwood novel

Classic Book Covers Updated with Cats

Contradictory Proverbs

Wrap Up With A Page

The Year's Best Humor Writing 2011

Inside Maurice Sendak's Idiosyncratic, Infinitely Creative Mind

Top 10 graphic novels of 2011

Kid Literary Characters and Their Grown-Up Counterparts

Incredible Book Sculptures

"I can't stop acquiring books..."

Move Your Story Right Along: The Elements of Style Rap

How To Write A Satirical Pop Culture Book Sold At Urban Outfitters

The Best Food Books of 2011

BOOK CLOCK

10 Legendary Haunts of Artists and Writers

Blue Nights

Judgmental Bookseller Ostrich Meme

Cool Bookends

Christmas Tree for Book Lovers

Leaf through a library on your next trip

Hey girl. I like the library too.

Anglo-Saxon - The History of English

Freedom

Sartalics, Type It Like You Mean It

Old French Fairy Tales

Night Journey

The Globe's 100 best books of 2011

Little Prince Shoes.

Pinky, the Literary Consultant

Top 10 Great One-Sit Reads

I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen -...

The LA Public Library’s 1928 bookmobile for the sick.

Where 15 Cultural Icons Laid Their Heads

Emily Dickinson's only surviving dress

Literary Devices

Sir Terry Pratchett Comes to Terms with His Death

Written? Kitten!

Grammar and Puctuation Jokes

1949 Candy Retailer Book

Orwell vs. Huxley

The Books They Gave Me

Dress made from a German edition of Heidi

Wish You Were Here

Goodnight Moon Revisited

Alice In Wonderland

State of Wonder

Room

The Monster In The Box

Changing lightbulbs in the literary universe

Red Wagon Bookshelf Mod

I Really Have Been Reading, Honest!