What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure. Samuel Johnson
Archive for the ‘Books and reading’ Category
Samuel Johnson on Writing
Posted in Books and reading, Writing on June 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Library Terror
Posted in Books and reading on May 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
“…Library terror – that feeling of being hopelessly overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of available books…” Owen Barfield, Night Operation
The Well-Read Life
Posted in Books and reading, Life on March 31, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Someone who sees all the books in my home might conclude that I prefer pages to people. Far from it. The point of reading is not reading but living. Reading helps you live with greater appreciation, keener insight and heightened emotional awareness. For proof, look to the innumerable great readers who have been great doers, [...]
Distractions and Dashes
Posted in Art, Books and reading, Internet on March 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
We are getting worse writing, worse art. Part of the reason for the much worse writing is that young people have so many other distractions in terms of their time—so many things to do, that reading books has just shriveled. They are assigned books, but few kids read books for pleasure. Too much else is [...]
Paglia on Poetry
Posted in Art, Books and reading, Poetry on January 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Poetry should not require academic translators to mediate between the poet and his or her audience. Poetry is a sensory mode where ideas are or should be fully embodied in emotion or in imagery grounded in the material world. Camille Paglia
Now Read This: Christine Rosen
Posted in Books and reading, Technology on November 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
On the end of reading, by Christine Rosen of The New Atlantis.
Reading the Great Books in Tehran
Posted in Books and reading, Fiction on November 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Every great book we read became a challenge to the ruling ideology. It became a potential threat and menace not so much because of what it said but how it said it, the attitude it took towards life and fiction. Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran, pg. 289
Kafka on Reading
Posted in Books and reading, tagged books, Kafka, reading on October 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Altogether, I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn’t shake us awake like a blow on the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it can make us happy, as you put it? Good God, we’d be just as [...]
