For complete works
An anthology is, almost always, a textbook. And it is much easier to fall in love with a (whole) work of literature or philosophy than to fall in love with a textbook.
“Do you read?”
Joe Scarborough asked Donald Trump a question.
Whose whom?
I’d bet a Happy Meal that Trump didn’t write this statement.
Isaac Barrow on bookishness
“He that loveth a book will never want a faithful friend, a wholesome counsellor, a cheerful companion, an effectual comforter.”
OOP
Oversight in Online Processing.
Rita Felski on “critique”
“Its conception of the uses and values of literature is simply too thin.”
Oil and reading habits
Read The Garden of Cyrus and The Hidden Life of Trees while waiting for the car.
A page-forty-five test
I’m in complete sympathy with the writers’ argument (against the corporatization of academia), but this book is best borrowed from a library.
Modern times
Photographing book pages.
FSRC: annual report
Our two-person adventure in reading, in its second year.
Geoffrey Nunberg on Trump’s “amateurish quotation marks”
Geoffrey Nunberg, writing about “the least literate president to take office” since Zachary Taylor.
W(h)ither grammar
How many problems in reading stem from an ignorance of basic grammar? And how many problems in writing stem from an ignorance of basic grammar?
Nat Hentoff (1925–2017)
“I was addicted to books.”
Reaching for a book
“‘When I hear the word “Trump,”’ he said, ‘I reach for a book.’”
“Brr-r”
Nancy is right.
One or more night stands
“What night stand? I don’t have a night stand. What’s with ‘night stand’? Why do you assume that that’s where everyone keeps their books?”
★☆☆☆☆
It’s always sobering to read Amazon’s one-star reviews of literary works. One-starrers can serve to remind teachers of lit of what they may be up against.
Eccentrics, no
My conclusion from pages 84 and 85 is that Eccentrics is a book to skip.
Not reading
Arthur Schopenhauer: “A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.”
FSRC: annual report
Reading together: seventeen books so far.
Ramona Quimby, stationery fan
The gift of an eraser.
New books, old books
From Joseph Joubert.
The World Book Encyclopedia
An Atlantic item that makes me miss the World Book Encyclopedia of my childhood.
Our mutual frown
Our Mutual Friend feels like the work of a tired writer, and it was making us tired.
Reading Rainbow at Netflix
A former student sends the news that Reading Rainbow episodes will soon be streaming at Netflix.
Accidental bird
Post-its and eraser crumbs.
What’s relatable
Ira Glass gave teachers of lit an odd little gift with his fleetingly infamous comment that King Lear is “not relatable.” Oh yeah?
Raise high the roof beam, Donald Meek
When I first read J. D. Salinger’s Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1963), I instantly imagined the “tiny elderly man” of the story as Donald Meek.
An Erik Spiekermann poster
“Start reading. Stop Googling.”
Moby-Dick at Harvard
“It’s sad to think of the faux mastery that passes for English studies in this account, and impossible to imagine playing the game, as student or teacher, without losing all intellectual self-respect.”