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Tag: books

  • How the Sochi Olympics Illustrate the Value of Books

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    harmamae
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    The big news when this set of Olympics started in Sochi was how much the whole thing cost – fifty billion dollars! – and cue predictions of how these fancy Olympics venues would all fall apart in a decade or so from lack of use. Okay, okay, I can definitely get in line with the…

  • Two Impossible Things to Get in Life

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    harmamae
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    “You can’t get a cup of tea big enough, or a book long enough, to suit me.” -C. S. Lewis Don’t you love it when people know you enough to get you something for Christmas that’s just perfect? Here’s something that combines three things I love: C. S. Lewis, tea, and books. Isn’t it a great…

  • Let’s Call the Ebook Something Else – It’s Not Really a Book, Anyway

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    harmamae
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    “We need a new word for ‘e-book,’” Ed Finn and Joey Eschrich declare in Slate – basically arguing that process of reading things electronically is so fundamentally different from reading the printed word that they shouldn’t be compared. Well, they do have a point. When I read stuff online, I frequently fall down a rabbit…

  • Peck Out Her Eyes, She Deserves It!

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    harmamae
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    Vindictiveness in Fiction Some versions of Cinderella end with her ordering her bird-friends to peck out her stepsisters’ eyes. Yes, the sweet, lovely Cinderella whom we all heard about as a kid – though clearly not the Disney version. Apparently she decided to take revenge and punish her sisters by blinding them in the most…

  • Ranking Jane Austen – Is It Possible?

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    harmamae
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    Emma Mansfield Park Pride and Prejudice Sense and Sensibility Northanger Abbey Persuasion  Is this a sensible way to rank Jane Austen’s books? As far as I can discern, this is how Adelle Waldman ranks them, in “I Read Everything Jane Austen Wrote, Several Times: Here Are Some of the Many Things I Learned.” Fans of…

  • Making Fun of Readers?

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    harmamae
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     I would never make fun of anyone who loved to read. – Juliet Ashton, in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society People who love to read get made fun of, sometimes. This is probably leftover from childhood, when the bookworms were thought of as kids who sat in the corner and had no…

  • Books, Books, Books!

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    harmamae
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    A logical follow-up to last week’s post about libraries is have one celebrating books. Here is a bit of verse by Elizabeth Barrett Browning – I quoted her once before in ‘From Recluse to Romance,’ which was part of my Real-life Romance series. I haven’t actually read much of her work, because of my somewhat…

  • Oh, Libraries!

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    harmamae
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    “Human beings can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.” – Saul Bellow, in “Him with His Foot in His Mouth”, from Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories (1984) I once made an acquaintance with a man who had the most amazing library. It wasn’t the biggest library…

  • Why Do Writers Write?

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    harmamae
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    “Why do writers write? Because it isn’t there.” – Thomas Berger, apparently There never are enough good books out there. Good books exists, but once they’re read it’s hard to find another one – so I do write to fill the gap in books I love to read. On reflection, this is maybe one of…

  • Unicorns in the Streets: What is Genre, Anyway?

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    harmamae
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    J.K. Rowling just released her latest book yesterday, and surprise, surprise, it is not about wizards. Or magic. Or unicorns. She has firmly departed her old stomping grounds of children’s fantasy, and forayed into what might be called contemporary adult fiction. Which got me thinking – why do we draw such hard and fast lines…