Yesterday on the Powell’s Books blog, Jason Fagone put up a worthy post about the first magazine story that blew his mind.
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Monthly Archives: July 2006
The Ambassadors
National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation recently ran a piece on an interesting nonfiction title, Jonathan Wright’s The Ambassadors: From Ancient Greece to Renaissance Europe, the Men Who Introduced the World to Itself.
Posted in Reading
Tagged jonathan wright, nonfiction, npr
Guggenheim Study Suggests Arts Education Benefits Literacy Skills
The study seems to be full of holes to me, such as the following attempt to divorce reading skills from writing and speaking skills:
Yet the study also found that the program did not help improve students’ scores on the city’s standardized English language arts test, a result that the study’s creators said they could not fully explain. They suggested that the disparity might be related to the fact that the standardized test is written while the study’s interviews were oral.
Read the rest of the article at The New York Times.
Summer Reading?
Why is summer seen as the time to charge fearlessly onto the public stage with a stack of “guilty pleasure” books under one’s arm?
Yet another article, this one at The Washington Post, serves up the genre fiction:
Unlike many other genre series, mysteries are often better the second, third or 15th time out. The best authors deepen their detectives, turn caricature sketches into character studies and hone familiar rhythms until a P.I. or an amateur sleuth feels like an old friend. Their cities evolve from generic backgrounds into bas-relief; supporting characters evolve from human props to essential sidekicks with their own inner lives.
Posted in Reading
Tagged crime fiction, washington post
Old Filth
Gardam explains the title on the first page, so nothing will be spoiled for potential readers by recounting it now. An elderly man has just left his table at the Benchers’ luncheon room in London’s Inner Temple. Several jurists discuss the departed figure, who looked familiar. The Common Sergeant knows why: “It was Old Filth. Great advocate, judge and–bit of a wit. Said to have invented FILTH–failed in London Try Hong Kong. He tried Hong Kong.”
Read the rest of the review at The New York Times.
Posted in Reading
Tagged book review, fiction, hong kong, jane gardam, new york times
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Highly recommended.
Posted in Read in 2006
Tagged highly recommended, reread, usa, vintage books, william faulkner
These Books May Make You Skip Work
I am not sure that I agree with the premise of the segment, part of National Public Radio’s Summer Reading series, but it is almost always fun to listen to Nancy Pearl, a Seattle librarian whose enthusiasm regularly reminds me why I do what I do.
Posted in Reading
Tagged library, nancy pearl, npr
Technology Rewrites the Book
When Steve Mandel, a management trainer from Santa Cruz, Calif., wants to show his friends why he stays up late to peer through a telescope, he pulls out a copy of his latest book, “Light in the Sky,” filled with pictures he has taken of distant nebulae, star clusters and galaxies.
“I consistently get a very big ‘Wow!’ The printing of my photos was spectacular–I did not really expect them to come out so well.” he said. “This is as good as any book in a bookstore.”
Read the rest of the article at The New York Times.
Posted in Writing
Tagged new york times, pod, publishing, usa