Faith and Reason For Tuesday

While RipChurch has been preoccupied with its own dark psyche, the things that brought it into being continue apace…

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Reading

At the request of a former student, a lapsed Catholic (and practicing bar-tender) who’s very interested in freaky shit, I’m reading The Miracle Detective…

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Books, Reading, and Language in the Digital Age

A bit dry, especially at the beginning.  But Dr. O’Donnell nails some really important things about books and reading in the digital age, and its impact on the mind.  I’ve been particularly interested for a few years on the loss of materiality of books and its effects on poetics.  The lecture is entitled “Cicero on Your iPad.”

Widower and Other Notes

A few months before mom died, I was sitting in the den and could hear my father talking to the hospice counselor.  As a lawyer, he was saying, he saw how the spouse who is left behind very often follows soon after, bereft of a will to live. 

Now, it’s strange to think that for so many years mom felt as though he were ignoring her; he seems always to be waiting now for her to say something, as though her voice were the linchpin of his existence. 

I’ve never seen him so vulnerable.

In other news, I’m keeping myself from feeling too much by reading.  I’m in awe of Robertson Davies less and less with each page of Val Ross’s excellent portrait of him; but I understand him more, and relate to him more.  It’s a good read.

Book Orders

The best rooms are filled with books.

It’s a beautiful day in New Orleans, an open-windows-and-books kind of day.

I just set a limit of $50 and went on a used book-buying spree: I love my Kindle, but I want paper in my hand these days.

I’ve got a bunch of Robertson Davies’ related stuff coming, including his biography and a few collections of his essays.

Because if you don’t have bombastic Canadians in your life, where are you?

KindleTinder: Reading Recommendations From The Pros

The National Book Critics Circle (they’re too toney for an “Association” and too hip for a “Guild”) has issued its recommendations.  

I confess that with one thing and another I’ve rather fallen behind in my reading.

We’re off this morning to bury my mother’s ashes next to my grandfather and grandmother, so I’ve re-stocked my Kindle with some of the critics’ recommendations. 

(I’d ask, “What is it with poets not embracing the Kindle?  They need all the help they can get with sales,” but you can’t really write good poetry without being a little highly strung, I guess unless you’re Wallace Stevens.  The thought of words not existing on the stable, flimy permafrost of paper makes poets crazy.)

First up: The Marriage Plot.  I frankly can’t take another novel set in New York City: I was ruined for that by Winter’s Tale.