Gustave Dore, Don Quixote An e-reader has entered our family. Here’s how it happened. My son Toby is studying for his English Ph.D preliminaries and wanted to spend a month reading 19th century British works in the family Maine cottage. He was accompanied by his girlfriend Candice, who is writing qualifying essays for her dissertation. […]
Tag Archives: reading
Learning to Live with E-Readers
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Don Quixote, electronic books, Homer, Iliad, Miguel Cervantes, Odyssey, print culture, publishing, technology Comments closed
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 Also tagged Edward Fitzgerald, Health, Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat Comments closed
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 Also tagged Asphodel, Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut, William Carolos Williams Comments closed
Reading Austen to Handle Adversity
In recent posts I have been writing about how young people in the 18th century found moral guidance in Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, even though the novel was attacked for corrupting them. Over the next four posts I will tell an inspirational story about one of my students who found guidance in the novels of […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Adversity, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility Comments closed
Summer Reading in Maine
This post is coming to you from Maine, where we have arrived for the Bates family reunion that we hold every three years. Before turning to books and the special quality that reading acquires in the context of a summer vacation, however, I hope you will indulge me as I describe the Bates Family Cottage. […]
