Books
« Previous EntriesThe Big Read via Renee
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008I’ve seen this challenge before, but Renee just happened to post it when I felt that I could spare a few minutes.
Renee says:
“The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.”
Wow, I’ve read 47! Almost half.
The Rules:
1) Look at the list and put one [...]
Miles Standish
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008I just finished reading Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick. It was excellent: a very readable account of the years from the founding of Plymouth to the end of King Philip’s War (1676). There are lots of interesting parts to the book. I found myself wanting to learn more [...]
What Book Am I?
Friday, March 28th, 2008The Deputy Headmistress posted a link for this book quiz. The questions were interesting. DHM, maybe there is a way that the questions adjust as you answer first one question and so on. So a person answering the first differently may get a different pair for the second and so on.
You’re Watership Down!
by Richard [...]
Winter Reading Challenge
Sunday, December 9th, 2007Kathleen is organizing The Winter Reading Challenge. I haven’t done this the last couple of times, and I can’t even remember if I did very well the time or two I did participate. For me, the problem isn’t the reading, but staying on track and prioritizing that reading. So this may help me do that. [...]
Amateur
Sunday, November 25th, 2007I’m glad I wrote that I was only “in” the first chapter in my previous post. Further on in the chapter:
This active use of time is of course for pleasure; its impulse is love. Everybody used to know this when the words amateur and dilettante were taken in their original meanings of “lover” and “seeker [...]
Culture and Scholarship
Sunday, November 25th, 2007I know I have other books I’ve started to read, but none of them hit the spot this Sunday afternoon. So I started another, The Culture We Deserve, by Jacques Barzun whose 100th birthday is later this week.
I’m only in the first chapter, but I can tell I’m really going to like this book. [...]
Jacques Barzun
Monday, November 12th, 2007Rick at Dry Creek Chronicles posted a couple of links on Jacques Barzun who will be 100 years old in a couple of weeks. The first is an article in The New Yorker which is entertaining and very nicely written (Sam, you’ll particularly like it.). The second is an article written by a former [...]
The “Reading Now” widget
Thursday, November 8th, 2007The “Reading Now” widget has unexpected benefits for me. In the last year or two, I have purchased books for my own personal reading at a faster rate than I have read them. Or as someone else has recently said: I’m in danger of becoming a book collector rather than a book reader. Part [...]
Lazy Weekend
Sunday, September 16th, 2007Well, I’ve not had quite such an unproductive weekend in a very long time. I read a novel…I’d say the first in a very long time, but I did just finish Anna Karenina not very long ago. This was a modern novel though. I have trouble exercising discipline when reading fiction; so I just tend [...]
Anna Karenina
Monday, September 3rd, 2007What a wonderful book. Tolstoy creates a story with very realistic and believable characters who exhibit all their faults and foibles. The story as a whole is a contrast between the lives of Anna Karenina and Levin.
I was going to write some important quotes from the end of the book, but that [...]