The Nerdy, Wordy, Reading Life
I started Joan Didion’s We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live and so far so good. A lot of the pieces are about sex, drugs and rock and roll but then so were the sixties… Her writing is clear and thoughtful but now I’m venturing in to some of the more introspective essays and [...]
I finished Zeno’s Conscience and although I pretty thoroughly despise Zeno, I think Italo Svevo wasn’t half bad. The book is a masterful example of the unreliable narrator. Then I started Dubliners and took a good whack at it. I first read many of the stories in a Lit class and as I go back [...]
I WANT MORE SLEEP! Alex was up crying again last night and since Luc spent all day yesterday crying unless he was actively being held or fed I didn’t really feel up to dealing with more fussiness. I’d already stayed up kinda late reading so when the screeching started I had barely dropped off to [...]
The more novels I read the more I see the multitude of ways one can hurt a child. Nearly all of the books I’ve been reading touch on some way a parent has screwed up their kid. Neglect, abuse, mockery, misunderstanding; they all proliferate. It’s sad really, but also is a multitude of good lessons [...]
I read all of The Secret Garden yesterday and I’m really over pedantic children’s literature. Ok, ok, I get it, fresh air and plain food are all the world needs… In other news the boys and I had an absolutely fabulous day. We played, I worked and hardly a fussy note escaped either of them! [...]
I read quite a bit today. After finishing The Rights of Man this morning and blogging the boys and I went for a walk to the bank. I read about half of Hawthorne’s A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys on the walk and then finished it over the too short nap time. It was [...]
Today I finished The Complete Bech (still not happy with how Updike played with his character in the next-to-last story), read all of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and part of The Rights of Man. 143 down. 57 to go! I thought a lot of Common Sense was neither common nor sense, but then I’m a [...]
I’m almost done with Updike’s book (The Complete Henry Bech) and it’s taken a weird turn. I’m still somewhat impressed by the book but if these last 40 pages keep up with this new turn, I’m not sure how I’ll take it. It’s like Updike just thought “Hmmm…I haven’t ever written a murder mystery…I guess [...]
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald Page: 264 Finished The Complete Henry Bech by John Updike Page: 90 Turns out that the cryfest that prompted yesterday’s plea for help had an *ahem* hormonal cause. I always feel like that invalidates everything. Anyway, I’ve often thought that this is just one of those “hard [...]
This Side of Paradise by F Scott Fitzgerald Page: 200 Fitzgerald’s style is unusual and surprising. I hadn’t expected the variations of mode or the easy familiarity. I don’t remember The Great Gatsby employing any of these techniques. Still, good book, and very worthwhile. I like novels about education or coming of age. I could [...]