Lego ergo sum.Summer has claimed me, happily so.
Zadie Takes On
"The problem with readers"
"But the problem with readers, the idea we’ve been given of reading is that the model of a reader is the person watching a film, or watching television. So the greatest principal is, 'I should sit here and be entertained.' And the more classical model is the idea of a reader as an amateur musician. An amateur musician who sits at the piano, has a piece of music, which is the work, made by somebody they don’t know who they probably couldn’t comprehend entirely, and they have to use their skills to play this piece of music. The greater the skill, the greater the gift that you give the artist and the artist gives you. That’s an incredibly unfashionable idea of reading. And yet when you practice reading, and you work at a text, it can only give you what you put into it."If you think we might be 'friends', please do send me a note. I would like to know how you found me, what groups you grace, what we may have in common, and so forth. Most of my friends share at least 50 books in common with me; several, over 90.
Unannounced friendship requests are declined outright. And, if you have more friends than books, with lightning speed.
I list only books I have read on the shelf, most of which are pleasure reads. If I had nothing but time, my shelf would grow by leaps and bounds, but who can be bothered to remember every single book she has ever read? Life's too short and the sun is shining, after all.
A word about my ratings/opinions, which do not quite coincide with Shelfari's descriptors:***** means don't miss it.
**** means it's well worth reading.
*** means it's not terrible and I remain ambivalent.
** means beg or borrow, but definitely do not buy.
* means "why were perfectly good ink and paper wasted to print this rubbish?"
Something new is coming here, but until I sort out exactly what, you are, I'm afraid, stuck with the same old lists.
A few things that delight me: being married, sand & surf, onomatopoeia, hot sweet milky tea, religious icons and rosaries, sequoias, NPR, ridiculous monsters, libraries and bookstores, Christ, Guinness, sick jokes, Cary Grant, "The Station Agent," stinky cheese, Nathan Fillion, Alice Smith, shoes by John Fluevog, Spider Jerusalem and his filthy assistants, Caravaggio, theory out of practice, Paolo Nutini, errata, rhyme and meter, silence, Maya Angelou's voice, Christian Bale, Aaron Kraten's artwork, sushi, and a good hard belly laugh.
A few things I cannot abide: e-mail, globalization, extremism, small talk, split infinitives, people with no sense of narrative or history, tight spaces, practicing at theory, anti-intellectualism, prose masquerading as poetry, animal cruelty, Dan Brown and Nicholas Sparks, folks who disparage things they cannot do, folks who subscribe to the philosophy of "my opinions matter; yours are stupid", Bill Paxton's teeth, and rudeness.
I cannot abide and am delighted by Christopher Hitchens. Go figure.
Let's talk books. Or whatever.
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