Valves, Valvoline, and singing circuits
I borrowed Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk from the library. “I want to learn more about our next president,” I told the librarian. She laughed.
Harvard student to her peers: read
More about Calkins
Two responses to Helen Lewis’s Atlantic article, “How Lucy Calkins Became the Face of America’s Reading Crisis.”
The (Lucy Calkins) empire strikes back
I see so much self-mystification and evasion of fact in Calkins’s response to her fall from favor.
Tips for reading The Power Broker
Five suggestions.
Fourteen lines? tl;dr
“Daniel Shore, the chair of Georgetown’s English department, told me that his students have trouble staying focused on even a sonnet”: from an Atlantic article by Rose Horowitch, “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books.”
“Is Reading Over for Gen Z Students?”
Listening to podcasts and watching YouTube videos — two suggestions offered in this podcast — don’t replace the work (and joy) of reading. Podcasts and YouTube videos might, on occasion, supplement the work (and joy) of reading in worthwhile ways. But without the reading, what’s the point? If instructors are unwilling to assign “an entire novel,” exactly what are podcasts and YouTube videos supposed to be supplementing? And what happens when the work of listening and watching becomes odious?
Orange Crate Art: Newspapers and novels
Walter Benjamin: “One may, if necessary, read the newspaper while eating. But never a novel. These are two conflicting obligations.”
NYRB sale
Big savings.
FSRC: annual report
The Four Seasons Reading Club, our household’s two-person adventure in reading, has finished its ninth year.
Reading or not in college
The limited ability of many students to read and write about complex or lengthy texts is a sad and still largely unacknowledged fact of college life.
“Decline by 9”
In “Not Lost in a Book” (Slate ), Dan Kois writes about a decline in children’s reading.
Bacon and Peanuts
Sally on Francis Bacon.
Struggling to read
Adam Kotsko writes about the decline in college students’ reading ability.
The states of reading
Axios surveys states’ approaches to reading.
An overview of the science of reading
From The New York Times.
Bookstores, reading, data
from the Department of Data at The Washington Post, bad news and some good news about bookstores and reading.
Investing in reading
“A new study found that California schools got positive results from a targeted investment in the science of reading": from The New York Times.
E.M. Forster on books on Frasier
Words in Niles’s library.
NYRB sale
The Four Seasons Reading Club placed an order this afternoon for Anton Chekhov, Helen Keller, and Jean Stafford.
A mother looks at “balanced literacy”
“RIP Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. You helped turn learning to read into a rich family’s game.”
Reading in Massachusetts
“Lost in a world of words” is the first in a series of articles about the state of reading instruction in the state of Massachusetts.
Travel by plane and book
A passage from Italo Calvino captures what flying always feels like to me: it’s not being anywhere.
“A fairly precise notion of the book”
Calvino anticipates what’s now called “distant reading.”
My proof that I never knew phonics
What’s a schwa?
Gothamist hears from Lucy Calkins
WNYC’s Gothamist reports on the dissolution of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. And Lucy Calkins responds — dishonestly and unconvincingly.
TCRWP LC? LLC!
Lucy Calkins doubles down.
Reading and writing in the dark
From E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr.
“Scholarly voracity”
From E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr.
Sold a Story updates
Two follow-up episodes.