Finished Zuleika Dobson, by Max Beerbohm, last night. (My copy was expensive, but you can read it online!) It’s a completely silly story (in a good way) about events that supposedly happened at Oxford University in the early 1900s. It’s got some extremely funny bits, and lots of amusing scenarios and wordplay. Several times, the […]
Archive | Language/Lit
Top Novels
I’ve only read 20 or so of The Modern Library board’s list of the top 100 novels of the 1900s. (I’ve read about 30 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course list. But who’s ever heard of that?) So I figure I’ll read a few more. I’ve just started Zuleika Dobson, which is apparently a lighthearted romp, […]
Headlines Now Dumber than Ever!
A headline on the front page of BBC News Online looks as though it came straight from The Onion: “Is Obama black or mixed-race? Both, says a Harvard professor” They also went a little crazy on the quotation marks: — … grant that he is “part” black (by way of his father), but assert that […]
A New World to Explore!
I’m reading The Forsaken, by Tim Tzouliadis. I never knew anything about this before. At the height of the Great Depression, thousands of Americans headed to Soviet Russia looking for a better life. The American system seemed broken and corrupt, and the Soviets were promising a heaven for the working man. Once there, these expats […]
Cliché
I would love never again to hear: 1. “a heartbeat away” from being president. Every presidential election, everyone uses that exact same phrase about the vice-president. A heartbeat away. It must have been a really powerful phrase back when it was first used. But now it’s just become the common phrase for the situation, which […]
Not in the Office
In Wales, all official signs must be in English and Welsh, as in the picture above. So the government wrote the English, then emailed the translator for the Welsh translation. The response came back and they printed the sign. The problem is that the email reply said, in Welsh: “I am not in the office […]
Freedom of Speech vs. Religion
Remember when those cartoons in Europe spawned a bunch of death threats and street protests from radical Muslims? And the good guys were saying, hey, don’t touch our freedom of speech. A new book about the movie, “The Last Temptation of Christ” is out. It reminds me that there were protests and death threats from […]
Library
I’ve mentioned before that I use Delicious Library to log my books. I like it, though I have yet to use it to its fullest. Today, just for kicks, I published my book and CD library. It only took a click or two. Mind you, it’s only part of the whole. Logging a book with […]
Heart of–zzzzzzz
Just read Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. I guess everyone else read it in school, but I rarely read anything I was supposed to back then. I almost always find that most famous books are famous because they’re really good. I’m talking about famous books that have lasted through decades or centuries. Dickens comes to mind. […]
Beautiful Libraries
Some beautiful libraries. They don’t have couches and such, but if you have to do a little research, or browse through the stacks, they beat the hell out of my local branch. Meanwhile, Wired Magazine showcases Jay Walker’s amazing private library.