Sports Saturday I am adding a new feature to Better Living through Beowulf, which I am calling Sports Saturday. If you wish to see all of the website’s posts on sports and literature, click on “sports” in the tag cloud. Once again the mesmerizing spectacle of the Olympics has descended upon us as we watch […]
Monthly Archives: February 2010
So We Should Read Standing Up?
As if we didn’t have enough to worry about already, recent studies have bad news for book readers. Apparently excessive sitting puts us “at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death.” Here’s an article on the subject. Book lovers would agree that there are few pleasures in […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Edward Fitzgerald, Health, Omar Khayyam, reading, Rubaiyat Comments closed
Huck Finn vs. CBS in the 1960’s
Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain This past Friday was the 125 anniversary of Huckleberry Finn, a book that packed a wallop when it came out in 1885 and has continued to be controversial ever since. Last May I wrote a series of posts on Huckleberry Finn, including on its importance to me as a child […]
Beowulf into the Sports Blogosphere
The Super Bowl has come and gone and, although my team lost, I appreciate the fact that the American city most in need of a boost received one. Before the football season entirely fades from memory, I want to share the story of my incursion into the sports blogosphere and how I carried the torch […]
Without Literature, We’d Die Like Mad Dogs
Kurt Vonnegut I have heard people sing the praises of Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle for years so I used the occasion of one of our snow days to read it. Vonnegut once had a cult following and perhaps does so still. I’d love to hear an update from a Vonnegut fan. While I wasn’t blown […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Asphodel, Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut, reading, William Carolos Williams Comments closed
Ignoring Books–Another Way to Burn Them
Read, reflect, act. That is my vision for how we should respond to literature. Therefore I was pleased to see a version of this advice appearing in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. I’m reading Bradbury’s dystopia because I will be leading a discussion of it tom0rrow as part of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged censorship, Education, Fahrenheit 451, Jon Meacham, Liberal Arts, Ray Bradbury Comments closed
