Gen Xers probably don’t need, let alone want, advice from me. But if I may make one small suggestion. If and when you want to name a historian laureate, give serious consideration to Sarah Vowell.
I know, Vowell says she is not a historian and she’s not. But that elevates form over substance. [...]
How has your reading changed over the years? Have you started reading more “meaty” books (books with more substance)? Or, have you gone to more “fluffy” reads? Perhaps you’ve done neither, and you’ve just always read the same type of thing! If that’s the case, why? Are you willing to step out of your reading [...]
The WaPo book blog had something I thought interesting. What books remain on your shelves that you’ve never read but continue to keep even though you’ve weeded out lots of others over the years?
Underworld by Don DeLillo immediately comes to mind. It’s been on my shelves for close to a decade but I [...]
October is rapidly becoming one of my favorite months. Wednesday night was the draft in the Puck Podcast keeper fantasy hockey league — which has members from the U.S., Canada, Switzerland and the U.K. (I had the first draft pick and took Ovechkin.) The USHL season started Friday night. The NHL Network [...]
Bulletin Board
In case I haven’t mentioned it, hockey starts today!!
Bruce Springsteen, who endorsed Obama earlier this year, is performing at four events for the candidate in the coming week. The first three are rallies today through Sunday in Philadelphia and college campuses in Ohio and Michigan. Then he’ll perform Oct. 16 at “Change [...]
Through the LA Times book blog, I learned of DonorsChoose.org. It’s a site that allows you to donate money to help teachers fund class projects. The program is open to all public schools and the site currently has five South Dakota projects, two of which seek to bring books to students.
By [...]
What, in your opinion, is the best book that you haven’t liked? Mind you, I don’t mean your most-hated book–oh, no. I mean the most accomplished, skilled, well-written, impressive book that you just simply didn’t like.
With the standard being books I “just simply didn’t like,” there’s so many, largely due to my illiterati status. [...]
In the midst of Banned Books Week, President John F. Kennedy’s statement that “a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people” is particularly pertinent. And is it just coincidence that the Kennedy presidency seems to [...]
Here’s the books I’m lusting after currently:
The Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War, Asne Seierstad — I’ve always had an interest in those parts of the world that grab headlines and we then forget. Given it is written by the author of The Bookseller of Kabul, I have high hopes for this, [...]
As we hit the middle of Banned Books Week, here’s a round-up of various items related to it:
Take the Banned Books Quiz. I scored 8 out of 13, which prompted the following response: “Rather ignorant, I’m afraid. You’re clearly reading in slavish obedience to the censors. Are you going to be voting for Sarah [...]
For this week’s Tuesday Thingers, I’ve copied the list of the most-challenged books of the 1990s straight from the ALA website. Highlight what you’ve read, and italicize what you have in your [Library Thing] library.
Because many of the books are aimed at school-age children, I haven’t read and don’t own a lot of them. [...]
This week’s Musing posits several questions so they’re presented separately.
What are you reading right now?
I’m just finishing Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith.
Why are you reading what you’re reading? Pleasure? For review? Something else?
I’m reading it for pleasure because it made the Man Booker Prize longlist, it’s set in Stalinist Russia and seems to have [...]
If the title of Marty Beckerman’s latest book doesn’t clue you in on where he’s coming from, he erases any doubt with the first sentence. “Opinions are like genitals: if you force others to swallow yours, something is seriously wrong with you.”
Since Dumbocracy: Adventures with the Loony Left, the Rabid Right, and Other American [...]
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Some artists go to Wal-Mart. Bob Dylan goes to NPR. Beginning at midnight Monday, NPR will be streaming the entirety of Dylan’s forthcoming Tell Tale Signs. The two-disc set is the eighth volume of Dylan’s bootleg series and will be officially released Oct. 7.
Today is Museum Day, which means that if you [...]
Tomorrow marks the beginning of this year’s Banned Books Week, which runs through October 4. According to the American Library Association, more than 400 books were challenged last year.
In honor of Banned Books Week, here’s the 10 most challenged titles last year and the reasons why. It is plainly an appropriate time [...]
White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov
Album of the Damned: Snapshots from the Third Reich by Paul Garson
