Isak (Free subscription) | 11/23/2009
In 1916 to hold a job on a daily paper,a columnist was expected to be something of a scholar and a poet--or if not a poet at least to harbor the transmigrated soul of a dead poet. Nowadays, to get a columning job a man need only have the soul of a Peep Tom, or of a third-rate prophet. There are plenty of loud clowns and bad poets at work on papers today, but there are not many columnists adding to...
Brit Lit Blogs (Free subscription) | 11/23/2009
It took me a few weeks to read Blake Bailey’s exhaustive and exhausting (770 pages tip to tail) biography of John Cheever. Living with Cheever even for a month was no picnic: as his wife or children would tell you. He was a depressive, conflicted alcoholic, notably “enchained within the prison of self” even for a writer: when his children read some of the thousands of pages of his...
The Kiddosphere @ Fauquier (Free subscription) | 11/18/2009
This is the time of year that I like to revisit some familiar favorites. Occasionally, with the reading I have to do for Capitol Choices, Jefferson Cup, and the books I review for School Library Journal, reading sometimes feels more like work than pleasure (however, the benefits of doing this committee/review work far outweigh the occasional grumpiness I feel!). That's when I know it's time to reread...
cynsations (Free subscription) | 11/18/2009
Learn about Mahtab Narsimhan , and read her blog . How do you psyche yourself up to write and to keep writing? I set a reward before I start writing and will allow myself that reward only if I finish the quota for the day. Normally that entails surfing the Net or writing a nice long e-mail to a friend; stuff that usually makes me feel extremely guilty if I have written nothing on any given day! I’m...
Cultural Offering.com (Free subscription) | 11/16/2009
Sol Sternberg has a great education article at City Journal about E.D. HIrsch's Cultural Literacy movement - the concept that early in schooling, children need to understand certain Core Knowledge subjects (that the education establishment positively hates): "For example, the Core Knowledge curriculum specifies that in English language arts, all second-graders read poems by Robert Louis Stevenson,Emily...
Dictionary Quotes (Free subscription) | 11/15/2009
“Be obscure clearly.” E. B. White quotes
Reading with Tequila (Free subscription) | 11/08/2009
Every week we'll post about what books we have received that week (via your mailbox/library/store bought)! Created by The Story Siren ! For Review (4) Life After 187 by Wade J. Halverson The Secret of Joy by Melissa Senate (blog tour) What Your Mother Never Told You: A Survival Guide for Teenage Girls by Richard M. Dudum 600 Hours of Edward by Craig Lancaster Library (5) The Red Badge of Courage by...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 11/07/2009
Children's books deserve this grown-up study. By AS Byatt This is a risky and brilliant title. The Enchanted Hunters is the hotel where the predatory monster Humbert Humbert has his way with the nymphet Lolita. Maria Tatar is the author of the excellent Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales as well as works on the Bluebeard story, Hans Andersen, and sexual murder in Weimar. Enchanted Hunters is not...
Angry Asian Creations ... (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
do you remember that childhood book Charlotte's Web by EB White ? i read the book in 3rd grade. i love it. almost as much as Harriet the Spy . i liked the idea that animals talked to each other, that they had friendships formed, a daily routine that they stuck to. who knew that a rat could be helpful, or that the goose was such a snob? most importantly, it was beyond amazing to me that a spider could...
Fluttering Butterflies (Free subscription) | 11/02/2009
Well, it's the end of another month. 10 books read this month. It brings my yearly total up to 123 books, and I'm quite proud of that. It was a bit of a struggle at times this month, as I have many, many books started and unfinished and it was also a school holiday for Oldest. I guess my goal for November is to finish some of the books I've already started and to keep up with the reviews. 1. Charlotte's...
Ten Reasons (Free subscription) | 10/31/2009
Mark Garvey, the author of a new book commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Strunk & White's Elements of Style , has a tribute to the classic writer's aid in this morning's Wall Street Journal . I've carried a copy with me in my backpack or briefcase since around the time of the book's twenty-fifth annivesary, when the late Fr. Kelly gave it to me for his classical literature class at Rochester's...
hi spirits (Free subscription) | 10/31/2009
"There is no average reader, and to reach down toward this mythical creature is to deny that each of us is on the way up, is ascending."It is our belief that no writer can improve his work until he discards the dulcet notion that the reader is feeble-minded, for writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar. Ascent is at the heart of the matter."EB White, "Calculating Machine"...
Maggie's Farm (Free subscription) | 10/26/2009
The other night I became distracted by reading the series on radio soap operas which James Thurber wrote for The New Yorker in 1948. It's in Thurber's The Beast in Me and Other Animals. I envy Thurber's clarity, simplicity, and directness of writing, whether he is doing humor or regular reporting. Liked him better than EB White, with whom Thurber collaborated in writing the spoof on self-help books,...
西儒 ─ The Western Confucian (Free subscription) | 10/21/2009
So said Mark Garvey, author of the history of a book my grandmother gave me as a kid, reviewed here by Jennifer Balderama — Style and Alchemy . While The Elements of Style has been dismissed as "a little bow-tie-wearing book," Mr. Garvey "argues convincingly that critics who malign 'Elements' miss the point." Miss Balderama explains that "a humorless man wouldn’t...
Maud Newton (Free subscription) | 10/20/2009
E.B. White reviled the “outraged precisionists and comma snatchers” who ruled grammar and usage.
Videos