So I Hugged a Book Today by Sara Rendell
I am not sure why, but when I finished reading The Book of Mev, I hugged it. Maybe my body wanted to be closer to tangible truth. Maybe I was trying to express my gratitude to…
Category: Reading
Scintillating Promises (The Joys of Reading and Writing/Reinaldo Arenas)
Reading Reinaldo Areas’ novel The Color of Summer was a breakthrough experience for me. From him (and Eduardo Galeano) I figured out how to structure what eventually became The Book of Mev. The following are some passages I love from his Before…
Share the Wealth, with Christine Padberg: Reading in the Digital Age
In spring 2013, Christine Padberg was granted a sabbatical to explore the intersection of reading and technology, and how colleges can and should support students as they read and study in digital environments. When asked…
Reading/713 (Master Chu)
In reading, you must keep your mind glued to the text. Only when every sentence and every character falls into place have you done a good job of thinking through the work. In general, the…
May We Always Be Amateurs
Nonrequired Reading: Prose Pieces Wislawa Szymborska Translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh Herein are a few score short pieces by the Nobel laureate (Literature, 1996), usually no more than a page or two, although…
Drugged by Books
Soon after my father’s death, I started reading Leon Wieseltier’s Kaddish, his journal of reflections on his year of going to shul and saying Kaddish. In the days and weeks ahead, Wieseltier offered me some…
Books
My father had an Appalachian education That went through sixth grade I went after and got a BA, MA And a PhD I doubt my father Ever finished reading a book (I once asked him…
Kafka’s Axe
Dear Bella Levenshteyn, Was reading Kafka’s letters earlier today. The passage caught my eye: “I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we’re reading…
An Inspiring Evening by Jenn Reyes Lay
I was once again inspired and on fire this evening from the beautiful collection of stories from Brazil compiled by Mev Puleo entitled The Struggle Is One. Gathering with many who have also been touched by…
Good Citizens/1
Dear Friends in the Sangha, I first encountered The Miracle of Being Awake (later published as The Miracle of Mindfulness) in 1982, when a monk from the Abbey of Gethsemani gave me a mimeograph of…