Whilst traveling (has anyone else noticed an increase in the use of ‘whilst’?), I like to check out what my fellow passengers are reading. A lady in the Charleston airport was in the early pages of The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga; she also had the latest book by Pat Conroy (South of Broad) in her [...]
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
What’s everybody reading?
Posted in Uncategorized on October 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
On aging and death
Posted in Uncategorized on August 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I used to trick myself by adding a year or two to my age by way of becoming used to the idea of being 40 and then 50. So, recently, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I am actually turning 52, not 53. The term over-the-hill is a bit of a joke bringing to mind silly [...]
Netherland
Posted in Uncategorized on August 6, 2009 | 1 Comment »
After reading descriptions of Joseph O’Neill’s new novel Netherland which talked of it as a post 9/11 novel, I was not really interested in reading it and that is the reaction of most people when I attempt to describe the book in reference to that date. However, after hearing the author interviewed by Terri Gross on Fresh [...]
The White Whale
Posted in Uncategorized on June 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
As fellow English majors who never got around to finishing Moby Dick, BC and I finally decided to try it again. My first attempt, my ‘furthest south,’ if you will, brought me to page 247 in my copy. BC actually was supposed to read it in a college class, but never did. So the quest began, and like barnacles [...]
The White Tiger
Posted in Uncategorized on May 17, 2009 | 1 Comment »
For sometime I’ve felt that some of the best novelists writing in English are Indians. Just as the Irish dominated English literature in the early part of the 20th century, with Yeats, Joyce and Shaw, I feel the Indians are using the English language to advance literature, to make the novel their own. Writers like [...]
Why I read the New Yorker
Posted in Uncategorized on May 10, 2009 | 3 Comments »
I remember the first time I picked up a copy of The New Yorker from where it was lying on a friend’s Mother’s kitchen table. This was sometime in the eighties. I read one snippet from the “Talk of the Town” and was immediately intrigued. Another time I found an issue at their house and [...]
School for Love
Posted in Uncategorized on March 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I just read a great, little book, lent me by my sister, School for Love, by Olivia Manning. I read Manning’s Levant and Balkan trilogies many years ago after seeing The Fortunes of War with Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh. I liked those works, but never thought to check if she wrote anything else. This book [...]
Back from a long hiatus
Posted in Uncategorized on April 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
What have I been doing with myself since my last post in February? Well, taxes took a long time this year, then there was the destination wedding in Key West! Then, hosting Passover dinner for 17; plus, once I stop doing something, whether it’s writing or playing the piano or exercising, it just seems that much [...]
The lessons of the Iliad
Posted in Teaching Company, books on November 20, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve listened to the Iliad lectures at least five times now and am still trying to grasp the enormity of it all. Fears lays out many, often overlapping, lessons and themes from the book. For instance, the great lesson is that learned by Achilles, that one should be moderate in the pursuit of one’s values. [...]
Reading The Iliad
Posted in Teaching Company, books on November 17, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
I finished the Iliad; and I’m quite glad that after some false starts over the past decade I finally did it, and I enjoyed it. More than that, it changed my life (more to follow on this). First of all, two things helped me finally conquer this classic: 1) the motivation and context provided by [...]
