Owner: pages turned URL:http://pagesturned.blogspot.com Join Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 13:28:58 -0500 Rating:1 Site Description: I've kept an online reading journal/commonplace book since the fall of 2004. I'm partial to contemporary literary fiction, but I also enjoy the classics as well. Site statistics:Click here
Happy eighth birthday, Readerville! 2008-06-12 10:15:00 I love book forums. I love message boards that contain book folders or book threads. Because I spend so much of my day online, the opportunity to refresh a page and see brand new book recommendations or a wild frenzy of punning or an ongoing intelligent conversation has provided a dependable, nourishing break as I go about my work. Book bloggers don't post near often enough for my quotidian habits Read more:Happy
Clubbing 2008-06-12 06:59:00 A combo of two suggestions by: Heidi and by litloveHave you ever been a member of a book club? How did your group choose (or, if you haven’t been, what do you think is the best way to choose) the next book and who would lead discussion? Do you feel more or less likely to appreciate books if you are obliged to read them for book groups rather than choosing them of your own free will? Does knowing
What's the internet doing to our brains? 2008-06-13 19:06:00 Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it’s a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking—perhaps even a new sense of the self. “We are not only what we read,” says Maryanne Read more:doing
Where you from? Wanna read this review? 2008-06-13 13:17:00 Respondents who identify themselves as residents of planet earth (62%) are much more likely than are those who self identify as residents of America or their city or town to agree that book review
s make them want to buy a book--Zogby's Reading and Book Buying Habits of Americans survey(via Readerville)
The changing face of the universe 2008-06-13 06:50:00 For Bonaparte to be conqueror at Waterloo was no longer within the law of the nineteenth century. Another series of acts was under way in which Napoleon had no place. The ill-will of events had long been coming.It was time for this titan to fall.The excessive weight of this man in human destiny disturbed the equilibrium. The individual alone counted for more than the whole of mankind. This plethor
Dickens vs. Johnson: a literary dispute 2008-06-14 18:51:00 Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns were not very cordial to each other. The literary dispute, of which I had seen the beginning, was a "raw," the slightest touch on which made them wince. It was the only difference of opinion they had ever had; but that difference was enough. Miss Jenkyns could not refrain from talking at Captain Brown; and, though he did not reply, he drummed with his fingers, which Read more:Dickens
, Johnson
Gore Vidal 2008-06-16 05:51:00 Who's read Gore Vidal
? Where would be a good place to start? After reading this q-and-a, I want to.
No title 2008-06-18 06:05:00 Savages won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I liked it a lot.
Sunday Salon: Petty Reading 2008-06-22 08:47:00 I've focused on three books this past week, a small number for some of you. Yet I'd much prefer concentrating on one novel at a time and I kept hoping all week that one would grab my total attention instead of leaving me internally agitating to start one of the many library books that came into my possession over the past few days that seemed much more promising than those already in progress (mor Read more:Sunday
, Salon
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And you won't read this book again / Because the ending's just too hard to take 2008-07-06 19:10:00 Actually I skimmed back through the first chapter after finishing Charlotte Bacon's Split Estate (I let too much time pass between reading the first chapter and the rest of the book) and reread a section late in the book that I'd found rather implausible--I still didn't find it believable but I could see how a mere, ah, jaunt about the corral would have fit neither the pacing required for impartin
Rebecca West review of The Glimpses of the Moon: "As Dust in the Mouth" 2008-07-05 13:11:00 I thoroughly enjoyed Edith Wharton's The Glimpses of the Moon but there have been too many real life distractions this week for me to work up a decent post for the discussion. I'm providing instead (in lieu of in addition to) a reviewRebecca
West wrote about the book back in 1922 in hopes that the rest of you haven't moved on and still feel like discussing it.The West review is harsh as were most
Freedom's just another word for. . . 2008-07-04 08:20:00 In our limitless selfishness, we have tried to define “freedom,” for example, as an escape from all restraint. But, as my friend Bert Hornback has explained in his book The Wisdom in Words, “free” is etymologically related to “friend.” These words come from the same Indo-European root, which carries the sense of “dear” or “beloved.” We set our friends free by our love for them, Read more:Freedom
No title 2008-07-03 18:14:00 Here is a list of the 284 books removed from the revised edition of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.I bet when I take the time to go through the list and count the ones I've read I'll find that I've read more from the rejects pile than from the books included in both editions. . . percentage-wise at any rate.
A couple of links 2008-07-02 19:12:00 Did you ever have a metamorphosis book? The first American one dates to ca. 1775.Just how many book titles have been taken from Hamlet? More than I care to count. Read more:couple
, links
Citizen Stupid 2008-07-02 08:17:00 Five defining characteristics of stupidity, it seems to me, are readily apparent. First, is sheer ignorance: Ignorance of critical facts about important events in the news, and ignorance of how our government functions and who's in charge. Second, is negligence: The disinclination to seek reliable sources of information about important news events. Third, is wooden-headedness, as the historian Bar Read more:Citizen
, Stupid
Horses unfurled 2008-07-01 05:37:00 Then, heading back to the truck, Celia felt the sidewalk tremble. Cam sensed it, too, glancing at his feet, then up again at the road. At that moment, she saw them--horses, lathered, at a run, striking blue fire from macadam striped in double yellow. Sorrels and grullos, two bays, some paints, twelve altogether. They kept their pace as they raced down the center of the street. Two shoes flung clea Read more:Horses
No title 2008-06-30 15:05:00 When I uncovered the birds this morning, Leo the cockatiel was on the bottom of his cage. It took monumental effort on his part to pull himself onto the lower perch, where he had to spread his wings to balance, unsteadily at that.I called the emergency vets' office up in Huntersville, assured them he'd been perfectly normal until this morning, and found out that the avian vet would be in at 8, whi
2008 Edition of 1001 Books: New Additons 2008-06-29 18:41:00 The 2008 edition of 1001 Books
You Must Read Before You Die is out, and Ashleigh has posted the updated list in its entirety. The revised list is more international this time around; I've not heard of most of the books or authors in the updates, so the additions listed below should keep me from ever experiencing a sense of being well-read.I hate that Rebecca West's The Birds Fall Down was cut from Read more:Edition
Final Read-a-thon Update 2008-06-29 11:06:00 I've had a blast as I hope everyone else did. I read exactly 900 pages.Wow, I could've finished Les Mis.Completed during 22 hours that I read:Was This Man a Genius? Julie HechtRequiem, Mass. John DufresnePartially read during the readathon:When You are Engulfed in Flames. David SedarisMy Sister's Hand in Mine: The Collected Works of Jane Bowles. Jane BowlesThe Horse-Stealers and Other Stories. Ant Read more:Final
, Update
Read-a-thon Update the Seventh 2008-06-29 08:57:00 There's no way I'll finish it before the read-a-thon ends, but I'm now reading Inger Ash Wolfe's The Calling, a book about a serial killer that I'd have started last night if I hadn't been sidetracked by the new Dufresne.Inger Ash Wolfe is a pseud for a "North American literary novelist," presumably a Canadian one. Figuring out The Calling's author has become a recent parlor game at Readerville. L Read more:Update
Read-a-thon Update the Sixth 2008-06-29 07:12:00 A shower. Breakfast. I started the new David Sedaris, which I'd rather not read all in one fell swoop, so I then turned to a deliciously weird story by Jane Bowles.Sixth
reading updateFrom David Sedaris's When You are Engulfed in Flames:"It's Catching""Keeping Up""The Understudy""This Old House""Buddy, Can You Spare a Tie?" 62 pagesFrom My Sister's Hand in Mine: The Collected Works of Jane Bowles: Read more:Update
Read-a-thon Update the Fifth 2008-06-29 03:28:00 Was within 50 pages of finishing my current book last night when my brain up and departed. Went to bed at 10 (I am soooo pathetic, I know), but set the alarm for 3. Took about 15 minutes for the brain to return to body and I've now finished a wonderful book I'll wait to review once the read-a-thon's over.Fifth
reading updateJohn Dufresne's Requiem, Mass. 316 pagesTotal pages read to this point: 63 Read more:Update
Read-a-thon Update the Fourth 2008-06-28 18:26:00 Any meaning is better than none. Ask any Catholic or Methodist or Hutterite or Hmong. You believe in a God who, in his exquisite loneliness, created the universe and little you. Or you believe that we, in our terrifying loneliness, created God. Doesn't matter which. Ask any Vietnamese child kneeling in the mud, praying, choking on her tears, feeling the hot muzzle of an M16 at the nape of her neck Read more:Update
Read-a-thon Update the Third 2008-06-28 15:26:00 The Amazon package thrown on the porch this morning contained John Dufresne's latest, which I'm happily reading now.Curiously though, a minor character (at least at this point), a wheelchair-ridden jerk who aspires to be a nightclub comic, quotes Ann Coulter's "corn-fed, no-makeup, natural-fiber, no-bra-needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagon" line about the wome Read more:Update
Read-a-thon Update the Second 2008-06-28 12:58:00 I was reading about Andy Kaufman running the movie projector at children's birthday parties as I walked through the house when I stepped in cat barf.Second
reading reportJulie Hecht's Was This Man a Genius?. 170 pages Read more:Update
Read-a-thon Update the First . . . with mini-challenge 2008-06-28 11:04:00 It's the official starting time for Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-Thon and I'm starting with a confession: I started at 9 am Eastern time instead of waiting till 9 am Pacific. Dewey said it was okay to customize "to meet your needs" and I felt I needed to tweak since I've never been able to pull an all-nighter in my life and I'd like to read more than the 18 hours I managed last October. If, perchance I Read more:Update
, First
No title 2008-06-27 08:18:00 Alison Bechdel on compulsory reading and the EW New Classics list.
Summer reading: ack! 2008-06-27 07:03:00 I didn't post an official summer reading list on the blog back in May, but of course I did make one. I'm relieved that I didn't embarrass myself in that way this year because I've revised it so much already that I'm at the point of putting all lists through the shredder and never making another in my life. I'm just too distractable. Someone ought to take away my library privileges so that I can st Read more:Summer
No title 2008-06-26 14:40:00 We like to think of our beliefs, and disbeliefs, as founded on reason and close, thoughtful observation. Only in theory do we begin to suspect the power of aesthetics to shape our lives.--Tobias Wolff
No title 2008-06-25 14:17:00 Writers' rooms.I would feel very much at home in Claire Tomalin's study.
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