Christians pray to Jesus, but get no reply. They pray to Jesus for parking spaces closer to the mall, to win the lottery, to make their boss disappear, to lose weight, to restore Donald Trump to his lost presidency, for their kids to win the little league game, for better
Continue readingTag: books about books
Scripturient: Musings on Haiku
I can’t recall just when I first encountered haiku, that subtle, concise and often baffling Japanese poetry, but I suspect it was sometime in the late 1960s, not long after I was first introduced to Buddhism. I recall having the four-volume set of seasonal haiku by Blyth back in those
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: nine nasty words by john mcwhorter
If you enjoy language, and history, and humour, you will probably enjoy Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter — Then, Now, and Forever by John McWhorter. A slim book written in a breezy style, Nine Nasty Words is an absolute delight. McWhorter takes the reader through a history of English words
Continue readingScripturient: The Book of Knowledge: 2
Last post I mentioned I had rescued a set of encyclopedias from the dumpster at the end of this year’s Mother Of All Yard Sales (MOAYS; an Optimist Club event). I didn’t explain what I saved and why, but I’m here to explain, and to show. Bear with me. First,
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: the turning point: 1851: a year that changed charles dickens and the world
The Turning Point: 1851 — A Year That Changed Charles Dickens and the World was written for me. I love Dickens. He’s among the core writers whose work means the most to me (along with Orwell and Steinbeck). Bleak House is my favourite of all Dickens. I wrote a mini-thesis on it
Continue readingScripturient: Milton Was Wrong
In 1644, the English poet and pamphleteer John Milton wrote an impassioned defence of free speech (or, more factually, against censorship of print and in favour of restriction-free publication) called the Areopagitica. It was subtitled A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament
Continue readingScripturient: Musings on the First Tercet of Dante’s Inferno
Back in December, before Godaddy broke my blog through technical incompetence, I had written a piece about the first stanza in Inferno, the first book of Dante’s trilogy, The Divine Comedy. Since that post seems irretrievably lost, I decided to write another in the same vein. So please bear with
Continue readingScripturient: Midway Through This Life’s Journey V.2
For some inexplicably serendipitous reason, I pulled Mary Jo Bang’s translation of Dante’s Inferno (Graywolf, 2012) from my bookshelves this week and began re-reading it. I didn’t like her version at first read, and am still not convinced her modernization is up to the task of conveying the poem’s beauty
Continue readingScripturient: Ammon Shea is My New Hero
Eyyyyyyy Wssup guys This was the entire first post that started a thread in a group I belonged to on Facebook. I think seeing it aged me a decade, and encouraged me to leave the group afterwards. Walking barefoot on broken glass would cause me less distress. All the poster
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: you could look it up: the reference shelf from ancient babylon to wikipedia
This must be the book-nerd-iest post ever, and unless books are your profession, possibly the biggest book geek-out you’ll ever read. And I’m proud to bring it to you. You Could Look It Up: The Reference Shelf from Ancient Babylon to Wikipedia, by Jack Lynch, is a joy to read,
Continue readingwmtc: friends and family reunion road trip: day eight: long-distance friends meet up in san francisco
Yesterday, after we dropped the pups at daycare, Allan and I took the BART into the city, but got off at separate stops. Allan was meeting a blog-friend (someone we have met before, and went to a game with the last time we were here, in 2010), and then had
Continue readingScripturient: Musings on Shakespeare Guidebooks
Unless you’re an academic who has studied The Bard for your entire career, you really need a guide, a Virgil if you will, to enter the dark forest of Shakespeare and find your way about in it. At the very least, you’ll want a guide to Shakespeare’s language and word
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: sometimes you have to lie: the life and times of louise fitzhugh, renegade author of harriet the spy
Until very recently, I didn’t know anything about Louise Fitzhugh and had not thought about her at all. Of course, as a child I read and loved Harriet the Spy, Fitzhugh’s iconic and groundbreaking children’s book. For a good portion of my life, I dreamed of writing a similar book.
Continue readingScripturient: Musings on Poets and Poetry
For me, reading the American literary critic, Harold Bloom, is often like wading in molasses. Intellectual molasses, to be sure, but slow going nonetheless. His writing is thick with difficult ideas and difficult words. Bloom’s historical reach, his knowledge and his understanding of the tapestry of literature far outstrip mine,
Continue readingScripturient: Point to Point: The Book From the Ground
A few years back, during one of our Toronto mini-vacations, I was browsing in the shop of the Art Gallery of Ontario, and I came across a small book that had no words, just pictures. No, it wasn’t a book with pictures of artworks or photographs: it was a story,
Continue readingScripturient: The Penguin Classics Book
Did you know there is a card game played in Japan at the New Year, called uta-garuta, where 100 cards have a full poem on each — traditionally taken from their classical poets — and another 100 have just the final line. Players take turn reading the poem from the
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: the library book by susan orlean
I’ve been on a “books about books” run lately, beginning with Syria’s Secret Library, then Robert Caro’s Working, and now I’m finishing the wonderful The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Orlean is a New Yorker writer, which generally means excellent nonfiction. Her book about the canine movie star Rin Tin
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: the library book by susan orlean
I’ve been on a “books about books” run lately, beginning with Syria’s Secret Library, then Robert Caro’s Working, and now I’m finishing the wonderful The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Orlean is a writer for The New Yorker, which generally means excellent nonfiction. Her book about the canine movie star
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: the library book by susan orlean
I’ve been on a “books about books” run lately, beginning with Syria’s Secret Library, then Robert Caro’s Working, and now I’m finishing the wonderful The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Orlean is a writer for The New Yorker, which generally means excellent nonfiction. Her book about the canine movie star
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: working by robert caro
Fans of Robert Caro rejoiced when we learned that Caro, author of nonfiction histories, was writing a book about his writing process. When the book was published, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one surprised by its brevity. At a slim 207 pages, Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing is the equivalent
Continue reading