Now that Spring has sprung in my neck of the woods, I’m pondering what I might cut down, burn, plant, fix, and build, which—because I am more reader than farmer or carpenter—turns my mind to books. So here’s a few books, essays, and stories I’ve enjoyed during my winter hibernation that I think might interest …
So institutions are crumbling, right? The fabric of shared culture is threadbare, and our intellectual class is what you’d expect were you to put the sheep in Orwell’s Animal Farm in charge of administering doctoral dissertations. It almost makes one thankful the average American attention span is that of a moth who can’t afford his Ritalin refill—our …
So I’m eating pineapple and considering this year’s Pulitzer Prize winners and these are not unrelated, because both activities aim at healthfulness. The truth is I’d rather be eating Krispy Kreme and reading Neuromancer, but my cholesterol has taken a slight uptick. It puts me in mind of my mortality, yet even as I approach …
Redesigning my blog was not a rational decision. I mean, consider the facts. Fact One: Nobody reads any more. The data are pretty conclusive. We’re all eye-glued to our apps, or gaming, or enjoying the golden age of television. Sometimes all three at once. Nobody wastes time on long sentences stacked like shelves in a musty …
“He sat in the dappled light among the stones. A bird sang. Some leaves were falling. He sat with his hands palm up on the grass beside him like a stricken puppet and he thought no thoughts at all.” Suttree, Cormac McCarthy
I’ve begun reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane to the boys. It’s by Kate DiCamillo, author of Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux. She had me at the verse with which she begins her novel, excerpted from Stanley Kunitz’s “The Testing-Tree:” The heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking. It is …
The Texas Board of Education strikes a blow against communist tracts cleverly disguised as children’s books. In other news, the author of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? is discovered to be a former manager of the New York Yankees.
My friend John Miller brings the smack on modern vampires. This may be a good way to sum it up: if your bloodsucker needs hair gel, he’s really just a big thirsty sissy with bad teeth. In general, vampires ought to be scarier than personal injury attorneys. Though both species deserve a stake through their …
“There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books . . . This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology. …
Isaiah is sitting on the floor surrounded by books. He opens one with a crinkle of its pages and says, “Shoo-chi-joo-sho-nay-nay-da.” He slaps it shut. “De end.” He picks up another, mutters out his own version of its narrative, and flips it closed. “De end.” This goes on for some time. “Joo-sho-nay-di-shoo-chi.” Slap. “De end.” …
