Books
I’m discussing Svetlana’s Alexievich’s Secondhand Time with Lori Hirst and Helen Houlle later today. One of the fascinating threads in this oral history is the emphasis on books in Soviet culture… My mother wasn’t alone,…
Category: Reading
A Writer and His Readers
And nothing would make me happier than having made it possible for some of my readers to recognize their own experiences, difficulties, questionings, sufferings, and so on, in mine, and to draw from that realistic…
Libraries
A big library really has the gift of tongues and vast potencies of telepathic communication. Northrop Frye
Wilder Love by April Ulinski
Started rereading The Book of Mev last night. Partially because I needed her reminder that being academic does not mean being disengaged from the world and from the people behind all those ideas. Also because…
Interrupting My Life
Alex Gaynor worked this past year with the Jesuit Volunteers and is currently a campus minister at Saint Joseph University in Philadelphia. She participated in the Be in Love with Yr Life and Writing Rejuvenation…
Worth Reading
Dear Irina, Here are some books that may speak to a few of your questions, interests, and enthusiasms. I’ll send more later on if you want…. Mark Daniel Berrigan, Isaiah: Spirit of Courage, Gift…
Summer Reading, 2009
I recently found this in an old file… CHINA Annping Chin, The Authentic Confucius: A Life of Thought and Politics David Hinton, Selected Poems of Wang Wei D.C. Lau, trans. Mencius Andrew Plaks, trans.,…
For Example, The Brothers Karamazov, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, and The Diamond Sutra
“I don’t deny it,” answered Swann in some bewilderment. “The fault I find with our newspapers is that they force us to take an interest in some fresh triviality or other every day, whereas only…
Books I’ve Given to Others
I wrote this for a former student in late 2010, who wanted a list of recommended titles. I decided to give her a list of books I saw fit, for one reason or another, to…
My Canon by Blair Hopkins
Mark Chmiel told me about the concept of the syllabus (books you are required to read for a given literature class) and one’s personal canon (books that have been significant to you personally, regardless of…