1984 June 25th, 2015 @ 7:37 am PDT
Happy birthday to Eric Blair — better known as George Orwell — born on this date in 1903, seventy years and one day before yours truly. My dad told me to read Animal Farm when I was seven years old. I thought it was really wild, but that there had to be something that I […]
On Books June 7th, 2015 @ 8:45 am PDT
We have a lot of books in our house. They are our primary decorative motif — books in piles on the coffee table, framed book covers, books sorted into stacks on every available surface, and of course books on shelves along most walls. Besides the visible books, there are the boxes waiting in the wings, […]
On Pride and Prejudice January 28th, 2015 @ 10:38 am PST
Happy birthday to a book I’ve never read: Pride and Prejudice was published for the first time 202 years ago today. “I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time […]
The Essex November 20th, 2014 @ 8:42 am PST
On this date in 1820, a sperm whale attacked a whaling ship off the coast of South America. The Essex hailed from Nantucket, Massachusetts, and was captained by George Pollard Jr. Pollard was only 29, the youngest man to ever command a whaling ship; the Essex, by contrast, was pretty old, and she was also […]
On life September 4th, 2014 @ 8:56 am PDT
There are books in which the footnotes or comments scrawled by some reader’s hand in the margin are more interesting than the text. The world is one of these books. George Santayana
Faulkner on Hemingway July 9th, 2014 @ 8:12 am PDT
William Faulkner’s Review of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea
On Sudden Death July 2nd, 2014 @ 7:54 am PDT
“You stopped breathing once when you were five weeks old. Did I ever tell you that?” No, she certainly hadn’t. “I was about to take a bath and then I thought I’d better check the crib, so I went in and you weren’t moving at all. I thought you were dead. I snatched you up […]
Redemption through Reading? May 12th, 2014 @ 7:07 am PDT
The regional government in Calabria, Italy, has approved a bill that would reduce prison sentences in exchange for reading books: For certain inmates, sentences would be cut three days per book. The bill will now go to the Italian Parliament. The bill was inspired by “Redemption Through Reading,” a similar program that’s been successful in […]
On Reading December 28th, 2013 @ 7:29 am PST
“A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.” Caroline Gordon
