May 2013
34 posts
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“All worthy work is open to interpretations the author did not intend. Art isn’t...”
– Joss Whedon
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BOOK RIOT: 7 Great Articles That Became Books →
bookriot:
A horse that still can still inspire awe, centuries after its death (1). A wizard who uses numbers to battle the evils of superstition and defeat those held back by wilful blindness (2). A young who man heads off into the wilderness in search adventure, never to return (3). These are the stories…
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“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own...”
– Franz Kafka
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“Nothing ever invented provides such sustenance, such infinite reward for time...”
– David McCullough
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Smoke Signals: Firing Up Your Grill →
“With the publication of Where There’s Smoke (Sterling Epicure), his second cookbook following the well-received For Cod and Country, we ask D.C. Chef, and National Geographic Fellow, Barton Seaver to point out some of his influences, some of his favorite eats, and his approach to sustainable grilling.”
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“Books are like truth serum— if you don’t read, you can’t...”
– Rodman Philbrick, Freak the Mighty
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Paste Magazines 10 Favorite Quotes from The Great...
1. “I hope she’ll be a fool. That’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” —Daisy Buchanan
2. “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.” —Nick Carraway
3. “Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.” —Meyer Wolfshiem
4. “Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.” —Nick Carraway
5....
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“Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself”
– Abraham Lincoln
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50 Novels to Read When You Need a Good Laugh →
susanandherbooks:
There are some really good suggestions on this list. (Everything Terry Prachett, Douglas Adams and Stephen Fry, plus you can’t go wrong with Catch 22).
I quibbled when this link came past the first time and I’ll quibble again. If you’re never read one of Donald E. Westlake’s Dortmunder novels, which are among the funniest books around, DO NOT start with...
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10 Unforgettable Literary Mothers →
“With Mother’s Day less than a week away, there’s no better time than now to celebrate the memorable mothers from some of our favorite recently published books. Some are memorably good mothers, while some are memorably bad mothers. Some are thoughtfully rendered portraits of real-life women, while some are purely fictional products of exceptional imaginations. One thing’s for sure—they’re...
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“Literature is news that stays news.”
– Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading
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“Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men...”
– Jesse Lee Bennett
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“There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.”
– Charles Dickens; Oliver Twist
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The Plutarch Award Nominees for 2012's Best... →
Announcing the First-Ever Prize for Best Biography of the Year as Selected by Biographers; List of Nominees Revealed
Named after the famous Ancient Greek biographer, the prize aims to be the genre’s equivalent of the Oscar, in that the winner will be determined by secret ballot from a list of nominees selected by a committee of distinguished members of the craft.
The 2012 books nominated for...
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“Novels must have verisimilitude, and truth has little enough of that.”
– Louis Auchincloss
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“When I am deep in a book, my life no longer exists.”
– Read and reread Cynthia Cruz’s beautiful, mesmerizing essay, On Reading, today. (via therumpus)
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Writers' Second Thoughts →
“What happens when authors revisit their masterpieces? These 50 famous books, annotated by their creators, are to be auctioned in support of English PEN.”
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“I could say that each novel has been written for somebody, to convince somebody...”
– Manuel Puig
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“Ask her what she craved, and she’d get a little frantic about things like books,...”
– Charles Frazier, Nightwoods
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“There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and...”
– Ezra Pound
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A Short History of Punctuation →
The following article, translated into French, was originally published in the April 2013 issue of Hiatus, la revue. Francis Ramel, Hiatus’ editor-in-chief, contacted me some time back to ask if I might be interested in writing an article about the “minimum” of punctuation, to match one of the themes of the April issue.
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“My narrators aren’t English professors, and I don’t want them to sound like they...”
– Bret Easton Ellis
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“What I really like to learn how to do is to build sentences that are equal to...”
– Richard Powers
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“The book she had been reading was under her pillow, pressing its cover against...”
– Cornelia Funke, Inkheart
April 2013
59 posts
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“The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You...”
– James Fenton
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“A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end.”
– Robert Graves
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Interview with Mary Roach →
“Mary Roach, aka America’s most awesome science writer, is famous for her pithily titled books on stuff that would delight eight-year-olds—if their reading levels were higher. She has written best-sellers on the dead body (Stiff), what might happen after death (Spook), and even the quirks of sexual arousal (Bonk). Interviewer Laurie Winer spoke with Roach about her new book, which...
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“Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together...”
– Paul Engle
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“Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and...”
– Salvatore Quasimodo
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“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar...”
– Percy Bysshe Shelley
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“We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with...”
– William Butler Yeats
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“I didn’t choose poetry: poetry chose me.”
– Philip Larkin
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“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin...”
– William Wordsworth
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