On this date in 2003, 16-year old Emerson Spartz traveled nearly 4,000 miles, from Chicago to London, to buy a copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Spartz could have stayed in the United States since the American release of the book was on the same day as the British release, but Spartz said that he wanted to be "where the story began" and to "feel the weight of that book" (1). The fifth installment in the Harry Potter series, Order of the Phoenix weighed in at 768 pages.
Almost ten years earlier the New York Times featured an article called The End of Books that speculated whether or not books and other print-based media were on their way out, being superceded by computer technology, principally hypertext. This is certainly not the first time that anyone prematurely declared books dead. As early as 1894 Scriberner's Magazine had an article entitled The End of Books relaying the predictions of Arthur Blackcross, who claimed that inventions like the photograph and the Kinetoscope, the first silent movie projector, would replace the antiquated written page.
John H. Lienhard, Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering and History at the University of Houston, makes an interesting analogy, challenging the conventional wisdom that says that new technologies replace old ones:
So, are paper books doomed? Oddly enough, they're not. Think about pianos. Pianos evolved from harpsichord improvements. But soon they were something wholly different. You still need a harpsichord for harpsichord music. In this century, cars replaced horses. But cars aren't much use in rough, roadless country (2).
Lienhard continues to argue in the article that books do something for us that no other media can. Instead of just supplying us images and sounds in a passive manner, books allow us to participated in the creation of images as we read actively and interact imaginatively with the text. Perhaps that's why readers like Emerson Spartz are willing to travel to distant cities to feel the weight of a book in their own hands.
And speaking of distant cities --the Greek word for book biblos originates from the name of a Phonecian city, Byblos, renowned for its manufacturing of paper from the Egyptian papyrus plant. It's the same root from which we get the word Bible, meaning book of books.
Today's Challenge: A Stack of Book Words
A book for all book lovers,(sometimes called bibliophiles) is A Passion for Books, a treasury of stories, essays, and lists all related to books. In a chapter called Bibliolexicon, it lists a number of words with the biblio root. See if you can match up each word with its correct definition. When you finish, go to your local bookstore and buy a book.
1. Bibliobibule
2. Biblioclast
3. Bibliodemon
4. Biblioklept
5. Bibliolater
6. Bibliophage
7. Bibliophobe
8. Biblioriptos
9. Bibliosopher
10. Bibliotaphe
A. One who steals books
B. One who buries or hides books
C. One who worships books
D. One who tears pages from or otherwise destroys books
E. A book fiend or demon
F. One who eats or devours books
G. One who reads too much
H. One who fears books
I. One who throws books around
J. One who gains wisdom from books (3)
Quote of the Day:
For books are more than books, they are the life
The very heart and core of ages past,
The reason why men lived and worked and died,
The essence and quintessence of their lives.
--Amy Lowell
Answers: 1. G 2. D 3. E 4. A 5. C 6. F 7. H 8. I 9. J 10. B
1 - Grobman, Paul. Vital Statistics: An Amazing Compendium of Factoids, Minutiae, and Random Bits of Wisdom. New York: Plume Books, 2005.
2 - Lienhard, John H. Engines of Ingenuity Episode No. 2009: "The End of Books: 1894" http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2009.htm
3 - Rabinowitz, Harold and Rob Kaplan (Editors). Passion for Books: A Book Lover's Treasury. New York: Times Books, 1999.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Friday, June 21, 2013
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
June 19: Create A Monster Day
Today marks the anniversary of one history's most remarkable meeting of literary minds. On the night of June 19, 1816, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, and Byron's doctor and travel companion Dr. John Polidori met in a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland.
Inspired no doubt by the unseasonably stormy weather of that summer, caused by the eruption of Tambora, a volcano in Indonesia, the group gathered to read aloud from a collection of German ghost stories, called The Fantasmagoriana. These stories inspired Lord Byron to challenge each person in the group to compose a ghost story (1).
One might guess that the two established poets Byron and Shelley would battle for first place in the contest; however, it was the two members of the party without literary reputation who rose to the challenge, each creating a monster that would change literature forever.
The English Doctor, John Polidori, wrote what has come to be called the first vampire tale, a short story called "The Vampyre," published in 1819. Although his story is not widely read today, it predates other stories in the vampire genre and is seen as the inspiration of the masters of the form: Sheridan le Fanu, Edgar Allen Poe, and, of course, Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula (2).
As far as the overall winner of the contest, based on the criteria of both influence and creativity, the award must go to Mary Shelley, whose contribution to the contest later became her novel Frankenstein (1818). In her introduction to Frankenstein, Mary credits a conversation between Byron and her husband, Shelley, as the inspiration for her story. She listened attentively as the two poets discussed Darwin's discoveries and as they speculated about whether or not the secret of life could be found and whether or not a human corpse could be reanimated.
That evening the seeds of the poets' conversation germinated in Mary's mind, producing a vivid nightmare that gave her the story that would captivate readers and moviegoers for generations. In her introduction to Frankenstein, Mary Shelley describes what she saw in her nightmare:
I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to make the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handiwork, horror-stricken. He would hope that, left to itself, the slight spark of life which he had communicated would fade, that this thing which had received such imperfect animation would subside into dead matter, and he might sleep in the belief that the silence of the grave would quench forever the transient existence of the hideous corpse which he had looked upon as the cradle of life. He sleeps; but he is awakened; he opens his eyes; behold, the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening his curtains and looking on him with yellow, watery, but speculative eyes.
As a result of Byron's contest, on this one faithful day, two unique literary monsters were born.
Today's Challenge: Famous Monsters of Book Land
Long before Shelley and Polidori created their monsters, other monsters filled the pages of ancient myth. See if you can match up each monster below with its appropriate description. Then, challenge your family or a group of friends to create their own horror stories and monsters.
1. Grendal
2. Cyclopes
3. Minotaur
4. Cerberus
5. Hydra
6. Sphinx
7. Harpies
8. Medusa
A. The many-headed snake that Hercules defeated in one of his labors.
B. The monster that Beowulf fought and killed in the Old English epic.
C. The creature with a bull's head and a man's body that was confined in the Labyrinth until it was killed by Theseus.
D. The Gorgon who had snakes for hair and turned anyone who looked at her into stone. She was killed by Perseus.
E. The monster with the wings and claws of a vulture and the head and body of a woman.
F. The winged monster with a woman's head and a lion's body. It challenged travellers with a riddle and killed them when they failed to solve it. It killed itself when Oedipus finally solved its riddle.
G. The three-headed dog who guards the entrance to Hades.
H. The race of one-eyed giants who made thunderbolts for Zeus.
Quote of the Day: Everyone thinks I'm a horrible person, but I'm really not. In fact, I have the heart of a child, and I keep it in a jar on my desk. --Stephen King
Answer: 1. B 2. H 3. C 4. G 5. A 6. F 7. E 8. D
1 - Woodbridge, Kim. "The Summer of 1816."
http://www.kimwoodbridge.com/maryshel/summer.shtml
2 - John Polidori & The Vampyre Byron
http://www.angelfire.com/jazz/louxsie/polidori.html
Inspired no doubt by the unseasonably stormy weather of that summer, caused by the eruption of Tambora, a volcano in Indonesia, the group gathered to read aloud from a collection of German ghost stories, called The Fantasmagoriana. These stories inspired Lord Byron to challenge each person in the group to compose a ghost story (1).
One might guess that the two established poets Byron and Shelley would battle for first place in the contest; however, it was the two members of the party without literary reputation who rose to the challenge, each creating a monster that would change literature forever.
The English Doctor, John Polidori, wrote what has come to be called the first vampire tale, a short story called "The Vampyre," published in 1819. Although his story is not widely read today, it predates other stories in the vampire genre and is seen as the inspiration of the masters of the form: Sheridan le Fanu, Edgar Allen Poe, and, of course, Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula (2).
As far as the overall winner of the contest, based on the criteria of both influence and creativity, the award must go to Mary Shelley, whose contribution to the contest later became her novel Frankenstein (1818). In her introduction to Frankenstein, Mary credits a conversation between Byron and her husband, Shelley, as the inspiration for her story. She listened attentively as the two poets discussed Darwin's discoveries and as they speculated about whether or not the secret of life could be found and whether or not a human corpse could be reanimated.
That evening the seeds of the poets' conversation germinated in Mary's mind, producing a vivid nightmare that gave her the story that would captivate readers and moviegoers for generations. In her introduction to Frankenstein, Mary Shelley describes what she saw in her nightmare:
I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to make the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handiwork, horror-stricken. He would hope that, left to itself, the slight spark of life which he had communicated would fade, that this thing which had received such imperfect animation would subside into dead matter, and he might sleep in the belief that the silence of the grave would quench forever the transient existence of the hideous corpse which he had looked upon as the cradle of life. He sleeps; but he is awakened; he opens his eyes; behold, the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening his curtains and looking on him with yellow, watery, but speculative eyes.
As a result of Byron's contest, on this one faithful day, two unique literary monsters were born.
Today's Challenge: Famous Monsters of Book Land
Long before Shelley and Polidori created their monsters, other monsters filled the pages of ancient myth. See if you can match up each monster below with its appropriate description. Then, challenge your family or a group of friends to create their own horror stories and monsters.
1. Grendal
2. Cyclopes
3. Minotaur
4. Cerberus
5. Hydra
6. Sphinx
7. Harpies
8. Medusa
A. The many-headed snake that Hercules defeated in one of his labors.
B. The monster that Beowulf fought and killed in the Old English epic.
C. The creature with a bull's head and a man's body that was confined in the Labyrinth until it was killed by Theseus.
D. The Gorgon who had snakes for hair and turned anyone who looked at her into stone. She was killed by Perseus.
E. The monster with the wings and claws of a vulture and the head and body of a woman.
F. The winged monster with a woman's head and a lion's body. It challenged travellers with a riddle and killed them when they failed to solve it. It killed itself when Oedipus finally solved its riddle.
G. The three-headed dog who guards the entrance to Hades.
H. The race of one-eyed giants who made thunderbolts for Zeus.
Quote of the Day: Everyone thinks I'm a horrible person, but I'm really not. In fact, I have the heart of a child, and I keep it in a jar on my desk. --Stephen King
Answer: 1. B 2. H 3. C 4. G 5. A 6. F 7. E 8. D
1 - Woodbridge, Kim. "The Summer of 1816."
http://www.kimwoodbridge.com/maryshel/summer.shtml
2 - John Polidori & The Vampyre Byron
http://www.angelfire.com/jazz/louxsie/polidori.html
Sunday, June 16, 2013
June 16: Bloomsday
Today is the anniversary of one of the most important dates in the history of fiction. James Joyce's novel Ulysses, one of the 20th century's most important and most controversial novels, takes place on one day: June 16, 1904. The novel tracks the day in the life of three characters, Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly Bloom, and Stephen Dedalus, as they walk the streets of Dublin, Ireland.
Although the book is set in Dublin, the characters and events parallel Homer's Greek epic the Odyssey. But Ulysses is not written in verse nor a traditional prose style; instead, Joyce's novel employs "stream of consciousness" narration, where instead of moving in a linear fashion, the story flows from the impressions, random thoughts, sensations, and associations of the characters. In an attempt to imitate the natural flow of the characters' thoughts and dialogue, Joyce omitted conventional punctuation. This, along with the novel's many allusions to history and literature, make the novel notoriously hard to read.
Here is a brief excerpt of the opening of the novel:
STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained gently-behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:--
Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:
-- Come up, Kinch. Come up, you fearful jesuit.
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding country and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.
Even before Ulysses was published it stirred up controversy because of its sexual passages. And the book was banned in the United States until 1933, when a New York judge ruled that the book was not obscene.
Born in Dublin in 1882, Joyce attended Catholic schools in Ireland and earned a degree in Latin. This probably explains his selection of the name of Ulysses for his protagonist, since Ulysses is the Roman name for the main character in Homer's epic poem, while Odysseus is the Greek name (1).
June 16 is a date where fans of Joyce hold public readings of Ulysses, and in Dublin, fans retrace the steps of the book's characters.
One resource traces 365 days of "events that did not really happen." It's called The Book of Fictional Days by Bob Gordon. Gordon's book ties each day of the year to events from fiction and film.
Today's Challenge: What and When It Didn't HappenMatch each of the events below from The Book of Fictional Days with the appropriate day and month (2).
1. Billy Joe McAllister jumps off the Tallahachee Bridge.
2. James Leer shoots Poe (Professor Grady Tripp's lover's husband's dog).
3. HAL 9000 becomes operational in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
4. Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf return to Rivendell and the house of Elrond in The Hobbit.
5. Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee arrives in Camelot (1528).
6. Horton the elephant hears a small noise in Horton Hears a Who.
7. Willy Wonka gives a tour of his chocolate factory.
8. Sam Baldwin and Annie Reed meet at the Empire State Building in Sleepless in Seattle.
A. January 12
B. February 1
C. February 14
D. February 26
E. May 1
F. May 15
G. June 3
H. June 19
Quote of the Day: Mistakes are the portals of discovery. --James Joyce
Answers: 1. G 2. D 3. A 4. E 5. H 6. F 7. B 8. C
1 - Raftery, Miriam. 100 Books That Shaped World History. San Mateo, CA: Bluewood Books, 2002.
2 - Gordon, Bob. The Book of Fictional Days: A Collection of Events That Did Not Really Happen. Korea: Tide-mark Press Ltd., 2003.
Although the book is set in Dublin, the characters and events parallel Homer's Greek epic the Odyssey. But Ulysses is not written in verse nor a traditional prose style; instead, Joyce's novel employs "stream of consciousness" narration, where instead of moving in a linear fashion, the story flows from the impressions, random thoughts, sensations, and associations of the characters. In an attempt to imitate the natural flow of the characters' thoughts and dialogue, Joyce omitted conventional punctuation. This, along with the novel's many allusions to history and literature, make the novel notoriously hard to read.
Here is a brief excerpt of the opening of the novel:
STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained gently-behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:--
Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:
-- Come up, Kinch. Come up, you fearful jesuit.
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding country and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.
Even before Ulysses was published it stirred up controversy because of its sexual passages. And the book was banned in the United States until 1933, when a New York judge ruled that the book was not obscene.
Born in Dublin in 1882, Joyce attended Catholic schools in Ireland and earned a degree in Latin. This probably explains his selection of the name of Ulysses for his protagonist, since Ulysses is the Roman name for the main character in Homer's epic poem, while Odysseus is the Greek name (1).
June 16 is a date where fans of Joyce hold public readings of Ulysses, and in Dublin, fans retrace the steps of the book's characters.
One resource traces 365 days of "events that did not really happen." It's called The Book of Fictional Days by Bob Gordon. Gordon's book ties each day of the year to events from fiction and film.
Today's Challenge: What and When It Didn't HappenMatch each of the events below from The Book of Fictional Days with the appropriate day and month (2).
1. Billy Joe McAllister jumps off the Tallahachee Bridge.
2. James Leer shoots Poe (Professor Grady Tripp's lover's husband's dog).
3. HAL 9000 becomes operational in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
4. Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf return to Rivendell and the house of Elrond in The Hobbit.
5. Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee arrives in Camelot (1528).
6. Horton the elephant hears a small noise in Horton Hears a Who.
7. Willy Wonka gives a tour of his chocolate factory.
8. Sam Baldwin and Annie Reed meet at the Empire State Building in Sleepless in Seattle.
A. January 12
B. February 1
C. February 14
D. February 26
E. May 1
F. May 15
G. June 3
H. June 19
Quote of the Day: Mistakes are the portals of discovery. --James Joyce
Answers: 1. G 2. D 3. A 4. E 5. H 6. F 7. B 8. C
1 - Raftery, Miriam. 100 Books That Shaped World History. San Mateo, CA: Bluewood Books, 2002.
2 - Gordon, Bob. The Book of Fictional Days: A Collection of Events That Did Not Really Happen. Korea: Tide-mark Press Ltd., 2003.
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
September 1: Author Rejection Day
Today is the birthday of Robert M. Pirsig, the author of the philosophical novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and holder of the world record for literary rejection.
Pirsing wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in 1968, but it was not published until 1974. Pirsig received a record 121 rejections from publishing houses. Since its publication, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has achieved cult status and sold more than 4 million copies.
The book is based on a motorcycle trip that Pirsig took from Minnesota to San Francisco with his 11-year-old son Chris (1).
Here are some other examples of authors who did not let publisher rejections discourage them:
-Richard Bach's book Jonathan Livingston Seagull was rejected by 26 publishers before it was finally accepted. It sold 30 million copies worldwide.
-J.K. Rowling received 14 rejections for her first Harry Potter book.
-Stephen King received more than 30 rejections for his first novel Carrie.
-Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time received over 30 rejections.
Today's Challenge: Authors' Last Laughs
The book titles and authors below all received rejection slips along with uncomplimentary words about their writing. See if you can match up the rejection with the author/title.
Carrie by Stephen King
The Diary of Anne Frank
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Crash by J G Ballard
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Lust for Life by Irving Stone
1. ‘The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help.'
2. ‘The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the “curiosity” level.’
3. ‘ A long, dull novel about an artist.’
4. 'We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.'
5. ‘I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say… Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level … From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.’
6. ‘It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.’
Word of the Day: Ostracize
A synonym for the word rejection, this word means specifically to banish or to send into exile. The word comes from the Greek ostrakon, meaning potsherd – a broken shard of pottery. The story behind the word relates to a practice in ancient Athens where citizens would vote to remove a person from the community by casting their ballots on a potsherd. Anyone receiving the requisite number of votes was then banished for a period of ten years (4).
Quote of the Day: Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty thousand page menu, and no food. --Robert Pirsig
Write: What is your favorite book? Write a letter of acceptance to the author, explaining why you love the book so much.
Answers:
1. Crash by J G Ballard
2. The Diary of Anne Frank
3. Lust for Life by Irving Stone
4. Carrie by Stephen King
5. Catch – 22 by Joseph Heller
6. Animal Farm by George Orwell
1- This Day in History - September 1 - Literary - The History Channel
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&displayDate=9/1&categoryId=literary
2 - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Online version http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Quality/PirsigZen/part1.html
3- Rotten Rejections http://www.writersservices.com/mag/m_rejection.htm
4 - http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=ostracize&searchmode=none
Pirsing wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in 1968, but it was not published until 1974. Pirsig received a record 121 rejections from publishing houses. Since its publication, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has achieved cult status and sold more than 4 million copies.
The book is based on a motorcycle trip that Pirsig took from Minnesota to San Francisco with his 11-year-old son Chris (1).
Here are some other examples of authors who did not let publisher rejections discourage them:
-Richard Bach's book Jonathan Livingston Seagull was rejected by 26 publishers before it was finally accepted. It sold 30 million copies worldwide.
-J.K. Rowling received 14 rejections for her first Harry Potter book.
-Stephen King received more than 30 rejections for his first novel Carrie.
-Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time received over 30 rejections.
Today's Challenge: Authors' Last Laughs
The book titles and authors below all received rejection slips along with uncomplimentary words about their writing. See if you can match up the rejection with the author/title.
Carrie by Stephen King
The Diary of Anne Frank
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Crash by J G Ballard
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Lust for Life by Irving Stone
1. ‘The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help.'
2. ‘The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the “curiosity” level.’
3. ‘ A long, dull novel about an artist.’
4. 'We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.'
5. ‘I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say… Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level … From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.’
6. ‘It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.’
Word of the Day: Ostracize
A synonym for the word rejection, this word means specifically to banish or to send into exile. The word comes from the Greek ostrakon, meaning potsherd – a broken shard of pottery. The story behind the word relates to a practice in ancient Athens where citizens would vote to remove a person from the community by casting their ballots on a potsherd. Anyone receiving the requisite number of votes was then banished for a period of ten years (4).
Quote of the Day: Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty thousand page menu, and no food. --Robert Pirsig
Write: What is your favorite book? Write a letter of acceptance to the author, explaining why you love the book so much.
Answers:
1. Crash by J G Ballard
2. The Diary of Anne Frank
3. Lust for Life by Irving Stone
4. Carrie by Stephen King
5. Catch – 22 by Joseph Heller
6. Animal Farm by George Orwell
1- This Day in History - September 1 - Literary - The History Channel
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&displayDate=9/1&categoryId=literary
2 - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Online version http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Quality/PirsigZen/part1.html
3- Rotten Rejections http://www.writersservices.com/mag/m_rejection.htm
4 - http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=ostracize&searchmode=none
Thursday, July 15, 2010
July 15: Amazon Day
Today is the anniversary of the first book sold on Amazon.com in 1995. The title of the book was Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought by Douglas Hofstadter.
Amazon.com was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos. To name his mega-online store he searched for an appropriate metaphor. The Amazon River seemed appropriate. Although it is the world's second longest river (the Nile is the longest) it is by far the world's largest river when it comes to measuring the volume of water. Thus the name for the world's most voluminous river also became the name of the world's most voluminous bookstore.
The word Amazon has its origins in Greek mythology. The Amazons were a tribe of female warriors, so ferocious and bellicose that they would burn off their right breast to increase their ability to more accurately shoot the enemy with bow and arrow. Achilles killed Penthesila, Queen of the Amazons, and Hercules, in one of his twelve labors, stole the girdle of another Amazon queen.
The name became attached the South American river when explorers noticed a resemblance between the women of the region and the Amazons of antiquity (1).
Today Amazon.com sells much more than books, but books are still its core product.
Since it began selling books online in 1995, Amazon.com has worked diligently to make their site more interactive. Its most unique feature is "Search Inside," where you can browse through a book (at least part of a book) as if you were in a bookstore. In April 2005 "Text Stats" was added to "Search Inside," giving an amazing array of numbers that allow you to compare books like you might compare baseball players. "Text Stats" gives the number of letters, words, and sentences in a book. It also lists "Fun Stats" that show the number of words per dollar and the number of words per ounce. Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, for example, is a great value at 51,707 words per dollar.
And if you need more numbers, "Text Stats" also includes numbers related to readability. The "Fog Index," for example, gives the reader a number that corresponds with the grade level required to comprehend the book's text. This score is based on an analysis of a randomly selected 120-word passage from the book. The number of words per sentence and the number of syllables per word in this passage are then plugged into a formula that spits out the book's grade level.
All this number crunching has not gone un-noticed by the press. The Washington Post ran an article in August 2005 that was not exactly a raving review:
. . . Text Stats is a triumph of trivialization. By squeezing all the life and loveliness out of poetry and prose, the computer succeeds in numbing with numbers. It's the total disassembling of truth, beauty and the mysterious meaning of words. Except for the Concordance feature, which arranges the 100 most used words in the book into a kind of refrigerator magnet poetry game (2).
Today's Challenge: Words By The Numbers
In the pairs of books below make a guess as to which one is the best value based on Number of Words Per Dollar (WPD) and which book has the higher grade level on the Fog Index (FOG).
1. Hamlet or King Lear?
2. The Scarlet Letter or Moby Dick?
3. To Kill A Mockingbird or Lord of the Flies?
4. 1984 or Brave New World?
Quote of the Day: When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes. --Erasmus
Word of the Day: bellicose (adjective) - Warlike or hostile in manner or temperament.
Write: What book in your library would you say is the most valuable? Why?
Answers:
1.
Hamlet: 7,506 WPD; FOG: 8.0
King Lear: 6,753 WPD; FOG: 6.8
2.
The Scarlet Letter: 14,023 WPD; FOG: 14.7
Moby Dick: 19,399 WPD; FOG 13.0
3.
To Kill A Mockingbird: 7,610 WPD; FOG 8.2
Lord of the Flies: 6,208 WPD; 6.7
4.
1984: 13,021 WPD; FOG 10.9
Brave New World: 5,933 WPD; FOG 9.6
1 - Ammer, Christine. Fighting Words: From War, Rebellion, and Other Combative Capers. New York: Paragon House, 1989.
2 - Weeks, Linton. "Amazon's Vital Statistics Show How Books Stack Up." Washington Post. 30 August 2005.
Amazon.com was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos. To name his mega-online store he searched for an appropriate metaphor. The Amazon River seemed appropriate. Although it is the world's second longest river (the Nile is the longest) it is by far the world's largest river when it comes to measuring the volume of water. Thus the name for the world's most voluminous river also became the name of the world's most voluminous bookstore.
The word Amazon has its origins in Greek mythology. The Amazons were a tribe of female warriors, so ferocious and bellicose that they would burn off their right breast to increase their ability to more accurately shoot the enemy with bow and arrow. Achilles killed Penthesila, Queen of the Amazons, and Hercules, in one of his twelve labors, stole the girdle of another Amazon queen.
The name became attached the South American river when explorers noticed a resemblance between the women of the region and the Amazons of antiquity (1).
Today Amazon.com sells much more than books, but books are still its core product.
Since it began selling books online in 1995, Amazon.com has worked diligently to make their site more interactive. Its most unique feature is "Search Inside," where you can browse through a book (at least part of a book) as if you were in a bookstore. In April 2005 "Text Stats" was added to "Search Inside," giving an amazing array of numbers that allow you to compare books like you might compare baseball players. "Text Stats" gives the number of letters, words, and sentences in a book. It also lists "Fun Stats" that show the number of words per dollar and the number of words per ounce. Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, for example, is a great value at 51,707 words per dollar.
And if you need more numbers, "Text Stats" also includes numbers related to readability. The "Fog Index," for example, gives the reader a number that corresponds with the grade level required to comprehend the book's text. This score is based on an analysis of a randomly selected 120-word passage from the book. The number of words per sentence and the number of syllables per word in this passage are then plugged into a formula that spits out the book's grade level.
All this number crunching has not gone un-noticed by the press. The Washington Post ran an article in August 2005 that was not exactly a raving review:
. . . Text Stats is a triumph of trivialization. By squeezing all the life and loveliness out of poetry and prose, the computer succeeds in numbing with numbers. It's the total disassembling of truth, beauty and the mysterious meaning of words. Except for the Concordance feature, which arranges the 100 most used words in the book into a kind of refrigerator magnet poetry game (2).
Today's Challenge: Words By The Numbers
In the pairs of books below make a guess as to which one is the best value based on Number of Words Per Dollar (WPD) and which book has the higher grade level on the Fog Index (FOG).
1. Hamlet or King Lear?
2. The Scarlet Letter or Moby Dick?
3. To Kill A Mockingbird or Lord of the Flies?
4. 1984 or Brave New World?
Quote of the Day: When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes. --Erasmus
Word of the Day: bellicose (adjective) - Warlike or hostile in manner or temperament.
Write: What book in your library would you say is the most valuable? Why?
Answers:
1.
Hamlet: 7,506 WPD; FOG: 8.0
King Lear: 6,753 WPD; FOG: 6.8
2.
The Scarlet Letter: 14,023 WPD; FOG: 14.7
Moby Dick: 19,399 WPD; FOG 13.0
3.
To Kill A Mockingbird: 7,610 WPD; FOG 8.2
Lord of the Flies: 6,208 WPD; 6.7
4.
1984: 13,021 WPD; FOG 10.9
Brave New World: 5,933 WPD; FOG 9.6
1 - Ammer, Christine. Fighting Words: From War, Rebellion, and Other Combative Capers. New York: Paragon House, 1989.
2 - Weeks, Linton. "Amazon's Vital Statistics Show How Books Stack Up." Washington Post. 30 August 2005.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
July 7: Utopia Day
On this date in 1535, Sir Thomas More was executed for treason.
More was caught in the middle of religious and governmental conflict when Henry VIII established the Church of England, defying the Pope and breaking from the Roman Catholic Church. Because More disagreed with the King’s decision, he resigned his office in the English Parliament and refused to take a loyalty oath. As a result, he was imprisoned and eventually beheaded.
The 1966 film A Man for All Seasons portrays the events surrounding More's execution.
More is best known for his 1516 satirical novel Utopia, in which he envisioned a perfect island state with universal education, command land ownership, religious tolerance, and shared labor (1).
Because of the sharp contrast between the less than perfect island of England and More’s Idyllic Island of Utopia, the satirical aspect of the novel was clear to 16th century readers. Today utopia and utopian have become a part of the English lexicon, describing any ideal or perfect condition or place. Of course this is an idea that exists purely in the imagination since establishing any perfect society is impossible. More certainly understood this even in the 16th century since he used Greek roots to generate a name for his island that translates literally as “no place,” [ou, not + topos, place].
Today’s Challenge: Go To Your Happy Place
More is not the first writer to envision an idyllic place in literature. The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions has an entire chapter devoted to these utopias. See if you can match up each of the names of the idyllic places below with its correct description:
Albion
Arcadia
Avalon
Eden
El Dorado
Shangri-la
Valhalla
Xanadu
1. Home of Adam and Eve where the Tree of Knowledge was found.
2. The fabled city of gold sought in the 16th century by Spanish conquistadors.
3. An idealized region in classical poetry found in the mountainous district in the Peloponnese of southern Greece.
4. In poetry and literature this name is sometimes used to refer to Britain as a green paradise.
5. The name of a dreamlike place of beauty and luxury in Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan.”
6. A Tibetan utopia depicted in James Hilton’s novel ‘Lost Horizon.’
7. In Arthurian legend, this was the place to which Arthur was conveyed after his death.
8. A great banqueting hall from Norse mythology where heroes, slain in battle, feasted with Odin eternally.
Quote of the Day: Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious, discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. --Helen Keller
Word of the Day: Idyllic - (Adjective) pleasing or picturesque in natural simplicity
Write: What is the most idyllic place you have ever been? Describe it so that your reader can experience it vicariously.
Answers: 1. Eden 2. El Dorado 3. Arcadia 4. Albion 5. Xanadu 6. Shangri-la 7. Avalon
1 – Raftery, Miriam. 100 Books that Shaped World History. San Mateo, CA: Bluewood Books, 2002.
2 – Delahunty, Andrew, Sheila Dignen, and Penny Stock (Editors). The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
More was caught in the middle of religious and governmental conflict when Henry VIII established the Church of England, defying the Pope and breaking from the Roman Catholic Church. Because More disagreed with the King’s decision, he resigned his office in the English Parliament and refused to take a loyalty oath. As a result, he was imprisoned and eventually beheaded.
The 1966 film A Man for All Seasons portrays the events surrounding More's execution.
More is best known for his 1516 satirical novel Utopia, in which he envisioned a perfect island state with universal education, command land ownership, religious tolerance, and shared labor (1).
Because of the sharp contrast between the less than perfect island of England and More’s Idyllic Island of Utopia, the satirical aspect of the novel was clear to 16th century readers. Today utopia and utopian have become a part of the English lexicon, describing any ideal or perfect condition or place. Of course this is an idea that exists purely in the imagination since establishing any perfect society is impossible. More certainly understood this even in the 16th century since he used Greek roots to generate a name for his island that translates literally as “no place,” [ou, not + topos, place].
Today’s Challenge: Go To Your Happy Place
More is not the first writer to envision an idyllic place in literature. The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions has an entire chapter devoted to these utopias. See if you can match up each of the names of the idyllic places below with its correct description:
Albion
Arcadia
Avalon
Eden
El Dorado
Shangri-la
Valhalla
Xanadu
1. Home of Adam and Eve where the Tree of Knowledge was found.
2. The fabled city of gold sought in the 16th century by Spanish conquistadors.
3. An idealized region in classical poetry found in the mountainous district in the Peloponnese of southern Greece.
4. In poetry and literature this name is sometimes used to refer to Britain as a green paradise.
5. The name of a dreamlike place of beauty and luxury in Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan.”
6. A Tibetan utopia depicted in James Hilton’s novel ‘Lost Horizon.’
7. In Arthurian legend, this was the place to which Arthur was conveyed after his death.
8. A great banqueting hall from Norse mythology where heroes, slain in battle, feasted with Odin eternally.
Quote of the Day: Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious, discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. --Helen Keller
Word of the Day: Idyllic - (Adjective) pleasing or picturesque in natural simplicity
Write: What is the most idyllic place you have ever been? Describe it so that your reader can experience it vicariously.
Answers: 1. Eden 2. El Dorado 3. Arcadia 4. Albion 5. Xanadu 6. Shangri-la 7. Avalon
1 – Raftery, Miriam. 100 Books that Shaped World History. San Mateo, CA: Bluewood Books, 2002.
2 – Delahunty, Andrew, Sheila Dignen, and Penny Stock (Editors). The Oxford Dictionary of Allusions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
September 5: BookCrossing Day
Today is the anniversary of the launch of the American spacecraft Voyager One in 1977. Its mission was to reach Jupiter and then continue to the farthest limits of our solar system and, if possible, beyond. On board Voyager is a gold-plated disc with a recorded message from planet Earth. The disc begins with a brief message that is translated into fifty-five different languages; however, the message that follows, from the Secretary-General of the United Nations, is relayed in a single language: English (1).
Travelling farther away from Earth than any other human-made object, Voyager is the ultimate message in a bottle, carrying the 12-inch golden record that contains recorded sound and pictures. Someday this recording might just be the first glimpse an alien race gets of life and culture on planet Earth.
Back on Earth another message in a bottle project has been going on since April 2001 when Ron Hornbaker founded BookCrossing.com. Taking the idea of PhotoTag.org, a site that tracks disposable cameras, and WheresGeorge.com, which tracks U.S. currency, Hornbaker had the idea of creating a site where readers could register a book and then deposit it in some public place: a park bench, a laundromat, or a coffee shop. The BookCrossing.com website provides an ID number for each book and a registration card that can be attached to the inside cover of the book. The card briefly explains the BookCrossing mission and directs finders of books to the website where they can document where and how they found the book and, if they read it, what they thought of the book.
To date nearly half a million people have become bookcrossers. The practice has become so popular that it has been added as a word in the August 2004 edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary:
bookcrossing n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.
Below is the list of the current top five most registered titles:
1. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
2. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
3. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
4. The Lovely Bones: A Novel by Alice Sebold
5. Deception Point by Dan Brown (2).
Today's Challenge: If You Love Your Book, Let It Go!
Write your own literary message in a bottle. If you were to select a book to release to the world, which book would it be? And what brief note would you write inside the book to entice the reader to take the time to read it?
Word of the Day: Serendipity
Meaning an accidental but fortunate discovery, “serendipity” is the perfect word to describe the finding of a book. The word was coined by Horace Walpole who got if from a Persian fairy tale entitled “The Three Princes of Seredip.” In the story the princes never found what they were looking for on their quests; however, in the process for looking for one thing, they found something else just as wonderful (3).
Quote of the Day: A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold. --Henry Miller
1 - McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
2. http://www.bookcrossing.com/
3 – Online Etymology Dictionary
Travelling farther away from Earth than any other human-made object, Voyager is the ultimate message in a bottle, carrying the 12-inch golden record that contains recorded sound and pictures. Someday this recording might just be the first glimpse an alien race gets of life and culture on planet Earth.
Back on Earth another message in a bottle project has been going on since April 2001 when Ron Hornbaker founded BookCrossing.com. Taking the idea of PhotoTag.org, a site that tracks disposable cameras, and WheresGeorge.com, which tracks U.S. currency, Hornbaker had the idea of creating a site where readers could register a book and then deposit it in some public place: a park bench, a laundromat, or a coffee shop. The BookCrossing.com website provides an ID number for each book and a registration card that can be attached to the inside cover of the book. The card briefly explains the BookCrossing mission and directs finders of books to the website where they can document where and how they found the book and, if they read it, what they thought of the book.
To date nearly half a million people have become bookcrossers. The practice has become so popular that it has been added as a word in the August 2004 edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary:
bookcrossing n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.
Below is the list of the current top five most registered titles:
1. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
2. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
3. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
4. The Lovely Bones: A Novel by Alice Sebold
5. Deception Point by Dan Brown (2).
Today's Challenge: If You Love Your Book, Let It Go!
Write your own literary message in a bottle. If you were to select a book to release to the world, which book would it be? And what brief note would you write inside the book to entice the reader to take the time to read it?
Word of the Day: Serendipity
Meaning an accidental but fortunate discovery, “serendipity” is the perfect word to describe the finding of a book. The word was coined by Horace Walpole who got if from a Persian fairy tale entitled “The Three Princes of Seredip.” In the story the princes never found what they were looking for on their quests; however, in the process for looking for one thing, they found something else just as wonderful (3).
Quote of the Day: A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold. --Henry Miller
1 - McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
2. http://www.bookcrossing.com/
3 – Online Etymology Dictionary
Sunday, August 31, 2008
September 1: Author Rejection Day
Today is the birthday of Robert M. Pirsig, the author of the philosophical novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and holder of the world record for literary rejection.
Pirsing wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in 1968, but it was not published until 1974. Pirsig received a record 121 rejections from publishing houses. Since its publication, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has achieved cult status and sold more than 4 million copies.
The book is based on a motorcycle trip that Pirsig took from Minnesota to San Francisco with his 11-year-old son Chris (1).
Here are some other examples of authors who did not let publisher rejections discourage them:
-Richard Bach's book Jonathan Livingston Seagull was rejected by 26 publishers before it was finally accepted. It sold 30 million copies worldwide.
-J.K. Rowling received 14 rejections for her first Harry Potter book.
-Stephen King received more than 30 rejections for his first novel Carrie.
-Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time received over 30 rejections.
Today's Challenge: Authors' Last Laughs
The book titles and authors below all received rejection slips along with uncomplimentary words about their writing. See if you can match up the rejection with the author/title.
Carrie by Stephen King
The Diary of Anne Frank
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Crash by J G Ballard
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Lust for Life by Irving Stone
1. ‘The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help.'
2. ‘The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the “curiosity” level.’
3. ‘ A long, dull novel about an artist.’
4. 'We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.'
5. ‘I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say… Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level … From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.’
6. ‘It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.’
Word of the Day: Ostracize
A synonym for the word rejection, this word means specifically to banish or to send into exile. The word comes from the Greek ostrakon, meaning potsherd – a broken shard of pottery. The story behind the word relates to a practice in ancient Athens where citizens would vote to remove a person from the community by casting their ballots on a potsherd. Anyone receiving the requisite number of votes was then banished for a period of ten years (4).
Quote of the Day: Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty thousand page menu, and no food. --Robert Pirsig
Answers:
1. Crash by J G Ballard
2. The Diary of Anne Frank
3. Lust for Life by Irving Stone
4. Carrie by Stephen King
5. Catch – 22 by Joseph Heller
6. Animal Farm by George Orwell
1- This Day in History - September 1 - Literary - The History Channel
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&displayDate=9/1&categoryId=literary
2 - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Online version http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Quality/PirsigZen/part1.html
3- Rotten Rejections http://www.writersservices.com/mag/m_rejection.htm
4 - http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=ostracize&searchmode=none
Pirsing wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in 1968, but it was not published until 1974. Pirsig received a record 121 rejections from publishing houses. Since its publication, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has achieved cult status and sold more than 4 million copies.
The book is based on a motorcycle trip that Pirsig took from Minnesota to San Francisco with his 11-year-old son Chris (1).
Here are some other examples of authors who did not let publisher rejections discourage them:
-Richard Bach's book Jonathan Livingston Seagull was rejected by 26 publishers before it was finally accepted. It sold 30 million copies worldwide.
-J.K. Rowling received 14 rejections for her first Harry Potter book.
-Stephen King received more than 30 rejections for his first novel Carrie.
-Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time received over 30 rejections.
Today's Challenge: Authors' Last Laughs
The book titles and authors below all received rejection slips along with uncomplimentary words about their writing. See if you can match up the rejection with the author/title.
Carrie by Stephen King
The Diary of Anne Frank
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Crash by J G Ballard
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Lust for Life by Irving Stone
1. ‘The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help.'
2. ‘The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the “curiosity” level.’
3. ‘ A long, dull novel about an artist.’
4. 'We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.'
5. ‘I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say… Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level … From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.’
6. ‘It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.’
Word of the Day: Ostracize
A synonym for the word rejection, this word means specifically to banish or to send into exile. The word comes from the Greek ostrakon, meaning potsherd – a broken shard of pottery. The story behind the word relates to a practice in ancient Athens where citizens would vote to remove a person from the community by casting their ballots on a potsherd. Anyone receiving the requisite number of votes was then banished for a period of ten years (4).
Quote of the Day: Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty thousand page menu, and no food. --Robert Pirsig
Answers:
1. Crash by J G Ballard
2. The Diary of Anne Frank
3. Lust for Life by Irving Stone
4. Carrie by Stephen King
5. Catch – 22 by Joseph Heller
6. Animal Farm by George Orwell
1- This Day in History - September 1 - Literary - The History Channel
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&displayDate=9/1&categoryId=literary
2 - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Online version http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Quality/PirsigZen/part1.html
3- Rotten Rejections http://www.writersservices.com/mag/m_rejection.htm
4 - http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=ostracize&searchmode=none
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
September 5: BookCrossing Day
Today is the anniversary of the launch of the American spacecraft Voyager One in 1977. Its mission was to reach Jupiter and then continue to the farthest limits of our solar system and, if possible, beyond. On board Voyager is a gold-plated disc with a recorded message from planet Earth. The disc begins with a brief message that is translated into fifty-five different languages; however, the message that follows, from the Secretary-General of the United Nations, is relayed in a single language: English (1).
Travelling farther away from Earth than any other human-made object, Voyager is the ultimate message in a bottle, carrying the 12-inch golden record that contains recorded sound and pictures. Someday this recording might just be the first glimpse an alien race gets of life and culture on planet Earth. For more details on Voyager and the contents of the Golden Record, visit the NASA's Voyager web site.
Back on Earth another message in a bottle project has been going on since April 2001 when Ron Hornbaker founded BookCrossing.com. Taking the idea of PhotoTag.org, a site that tracks disposable cameras, and WheresGeorge.com, which tracks U.S. currency, Hornbaker had the idea of creating a site where readers could register a book and then deposit it in some public place: a park bench, a laundromat, or a coffee shop. The BookCrossing.com website provides an ID number for each book and a registration card that can be attached to the inside cover of the book. The card briefly explains the BookCrossing mission and directs finders of books to the online journal page of the website where they can document where and how they found the book and, if they read it, what they thought of the book.
To date nearly half a million people have become bookcrossers. The practice has become so popular that it has been added as a word in the August 2004 edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary:
bookcrossing n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.
Below is the list of the current top five most registered titles:
1. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
2. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
3. The Lovely Bones: A Novel by Alice Sebold
4. A Painted House by John Grisham
5. The Pelican Brief by John Grisham (2).
Today's Challenge: If You Love Your Book, Let Them Go!
Write your own literary message in a bottle. If you were to select on book title that you would consider releasing to the world, which book would it be? And what brief note would you write inside the book to entice the reader to take the time to read it?
Quote of the Day: A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold. --Henry Miller
1 - McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
2. http://www.bookcrossing.com/
Travelling farther away from Earth than any other human-made object, Voyager is the ultimate message in a bottle, carrying the 12-inch golden record that contains recorded sound and pictures. Someday this recording might just be the first glimpse an alien race gets of life and culture on planet Earth. For more details on Voyager and the contents of the Golden Record, visit the NASA's Voyager web site.
Back on Earth another message in a bottle project has been going on since April 2001 when Ron Hornbaker founded BookCrossing.com. Taking the idea of PhotoTag.org, a site that tracks disposable cameras, and WheresGeorge.com, which tracks U.S. currency, Hornbaker had the idea of creating a site where readers could register a book and then deposit it in some public place: a park bench, a laundromat, or a coffee shop. The BookCrossing.com website provides an ID number for each book and a registration card that can be attached to the inside cover of the book. The card briefly explains the BookCrossing mission and directs finders of books to the online journal page of the website where they can document where and how they found the book and, if they read it, what they thought of the book.
To date nearly half a million people have become bookcrossers. The practice has become so popular that it has been added as a word in the August 2004 edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary:
bookcrossing n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.
Below is the list of the current top five most registered titles:
1. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
2. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
3. The Lovely Bones: A Novel by Alice Sebold
4. A Painted House by John Grisham
5. The Pelican Brief by John Grisham (2).
Today's Challenge: If You Love Your Book, Let Them Go!
Write your own literary message in a bottle. If you were to select on book title that you would consider releasing to the world, which book would it be? And what brief note would you write inside the book to entice the reader to take the time to read it?
Quote of the Day: A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold. --Henry Miller
1 - McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
2. http://www.bookcrossing.com/
Saturday, September 01, 2007
September 1: Author Rejection Day
Today is the birthday of Robert M. Pirsig, the author of the philosophical novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. He was born in Minneapolis in 1928.
From 1958 to 1960 he taught English at Montana State College and the University of Illinois, but in 1961 to 1963 he battled mental illness, spending time in mental institutions in Chicago and Minneapolis and undergoing Electro-Convulsive Shock Therapy (1).
In July 1968 Pirsig took a motorcycle trip from Minnesota to San Francisco with his 11-year-old son Chris. It's this trip that forms that basis of the novel's plot. From the very beginning of the novel the philosophical voice of the unnamed narrator captivates the reader:
I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in the morning. The wind, even at sixty miles an hour, is warm and humid. When it's this hot and muggy at eight-thirty, I'm wondering what it's going to be like in the afternoon.
In the wind are pungent odors from the marshes by the road. We are in an area of the Central Plains filled with thousands of duck hunting sloughs, heading northwest from Minneapolis toward the Dakotas. This highway is an old concrete two-laner that hasn't had much traffic since a four-laner went in parallel to it several years ago. When we pass a marsh the air suddenly becomes cooler. Then, when we are past, it suddenly warms up again.
I'm happy to be riding back into this country. It is a kind of nowhere, famous for nothing at all and has an appeal because of just that. Tensions disappear along old roads like this. We bump along the beat-up concrete between the cattails and stretches of meadow and then more cattails and marsh grass. Here and there is a stretch of open water and if you look closely you can see wild ducks at the edge of the cattails. And turtles. -- There's a red-winged blackbird.
I whack Chris's knee and point to it.
"What!" he hollers.
"Blackbird!"
He says something I don't hear."What?" I holler back.
He grabs the back of my helmet and hollers up, "I've seen lots of those, Dad!"
"Oh!" I holler back. Then I nod. At age eleven you don't get very impressed with red-winged blackbirds . . . .
You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.
Pirsing wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in 1968 but it was not published until 1974. In fact, he holds the world's record for rejections: 121 publishing houses rejected the book before William Morrow and Company agreed to publish it. Since its publication, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has achieved cult status and sold more than 4 million copies.
Here are some other examples of authors who did not let publisher rejections discourage them:
-Richard Bach's book Jonathan Livingston Seagull was rejected by 26 publishers before it was finally accepted. It sold 30 million copies worldwide.
-J.K. Rowling received 14 rejections for her first Harry Potter book.
-Stephen King received more than 30 rejections for his first novel Carrie.
-Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time received over 30 rejections.
Today's Challenge: Authors' Last Laughs
The book titles and authors below all received rejection slips along with uncomplimentary words about their writing. See if you can match up the rejection with the author/title.
Carrie by Stephen King
The Diary of Anne Frank
Catch – 22 by Joseph Heller
Crash by J G Ballard
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Lust for Life by Irving Stone
1. ‘The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help.'
2. ‘The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the “curiosity” level.’
3. ‘ A long, dull novel about an artist.’
4. 'We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.'
5. ‘I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say… Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level … From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.’
6. ‘It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.’
Answers:
1. Crash by J G Ballard
2. The Diary of Anne Frank
3. Lust for Life by Irving Stone
4. Carrie by Stephen King
5. Catch – 22 by Joseph Heller
6. Animal Farm by George Orwell
Quote of the Day: Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty thousand page menu, and no food. --Robert Pirsig
1- This Day in History - September 1 - Literary - The History Channel
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&displayDate=9/1&categoryId=literary
2 - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Online version
http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Quality/PirsigZen/part1.html
3- Rotten Rejections
http://www.writersservices.com/mag/m_rejection.htm
From 1958 to 1960 he taught English at Montana State College and the University of Illinois, but in 1961 to 1963 he battled mental illness, spending time in mental institutions in Chicago and Minneapolis and undergoing Electro-Convulsive Shock Therapy (1).
In July 1968 Pirsig took a motorcycle trip from Minnesota to San Francisco with his 11-year-old son Chris. It's this trip that forms that basis of the novel's plot. From the very beginning of the novel the philosophical voice of the unnamed narrator captivates the reader:
I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in the morning. The wind, even at sixty miles an hour, is warm and humid. When it's this hot and muggy at eight-thirty, I'm wondering what it's going to be like in the afternoon.
In the wind are pungent odors from the marshes by the road. We are in an area of the Central Plains filled with thousands of duck hunting sloughs, heading northwest from Minneapolis toward the Dakotas. This highway is an old concrete two-laner that hasn't had much traffic since a four-laner went in parallel to it several years ago. When we pass a marsh the air suddenly becomes cooler. Then, when we are past, it suddenly warms up again.
I'm happy to be riding back into this country. It is a kind of nowhere, famous for nothing at all and has an appeal because of just that. Tensions disappear along old roads like this. We bump along the beat-up concrete between the cattails and stretches of meadow and then more cattails and marsh grass. Here and there is a stretch of open water and if you look closely you can see wild ducks at the edge of the cattails. And turtles. -- There's a red-winged blackbird.
I whack Chris's knee and point to it.
"What!" he hollers.
"Blackbird!"
He says something I don't hear."What?" I holler back.
He grabs the back of my helmet and hollers up, "I've seen lots of those, Dad!"
"Oh!" I holler back. Then I nod. At age eleven you don't get very impressed with red-winged blackbirds . . . .
You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.
Pirsing wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in 1968 but it was not published until 1974. In fact, he holds the world's record for rejections: 121 publishing houses rejected the book before William Morrow and Company agreed to publish it. Since its publication, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has achieved cult status and sold more than 4 million copies.
Here are some other examples of authors who did not let publisher rejections discourage them:
-Richard Bach's book Jonathan Livingston Seagull was rejected by 26 publishers before it was finally accepted. It sold 30 million copies worldwide.
-J.K. Rowling received 14 rejections for her first Harry Potter book.
-Stephen King received more than 30 rejections for his first novel Carrie.
-Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time received over 30 rejections.
Today's Challenge: Authors' Last Laughs
The book titles and authors below all received rejection slips along with uncomplimentary words about their writing. See if you can match up the rejection with the author/title.
Carrie by Stephen King
The Diary of Anne Frank
Catch – 22 by Joseph Heller
Crash by J G Ballard
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Lust for Life by Irving Stone
1. ‘The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help.'
2. ‘The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the “curiosity” level.’
3. ‘ A long, dull novel about an artist.’
4. 'We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.'
5. ‘I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say… Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level … From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.’
6. ‘It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.’
Answers:
1. Crash by J G Ballard
2. The Diary of Anne Frank
3. Lust for Life by Irving Stone
4. Carrie by Stephen King
5. Catch – 22 by Joseph Heller
6. Animal Farm by George Orwell
Quote of the Day: Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty thousand page menu, and no food. --Robert Pirsig
1- This Day in History - September 1 - Literary - The History Channel
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&displayDate=9/1&categoryId=literary
2 - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Online version
http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Quality/PirsigZen/part1.html
3- Rotten Rejections
http://www.writersservices.com/mag/m_rejection.htm
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
August 22: Ray Bradbury Day
Today is the birthday of Ray Bradbury, the American writer best known for his science fiction novels and short stories. He was born in Illinois in 1920 and later moved to Los Angeles where he graduated high school in 1938. After high school he educated himself, spending long hours roaming the stacks in the public library.
He began writing full time in 1943, publishing a number of short stories in various periodicals. His first success came in 1950 when he published The Martian Chronicles, a novel made up of a number of Bradbury's short stories about the human colonization of Mars (1).
In 1953, he published his most popular and critically acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451, a story about a dark future in which books are illegal, and instead of putting out fires, firemen answer calls to burn illegal caches of books. The main character is one of these firemen, Guy Montag. Instead of reading, the general public immerse themselves in pleasure, watching television screens that take up three of the four walls in their homes and listening to seashell radios that fit in their ears. Like Winston Smith in George Orwell's 1984, Guy Montag begins to question his job and the entire status quo of the society in which he lives. He begins to become curious about the books he's burning. However Montag's curiosity and his books betray him, and the firemen one day arrive to burn his home and his books.
Montag flees the city and comes upon a group of educated but homeless men who each memorize a great work of literature or philosophy. When the time comes to return to the city and rebuild civilization from the ashes of burned books, these men will be ready to play their part. Montag will join them with his book, Ecclesiastes.
Bradbury published over 30 books, almost 600 short stories, as well as a number of poems, essays, and plays. Along with Fahrenheit 451, his most read book, his short stores are published in numerous anthologies and textbooks.
Fahrenheit 451 began as a short story called "The Fireman" published in Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine in 1950. Bradbury's publisher then asked him to expand the story into a novel in 1953. The first draft of the novel was completed in a typing room located in the basement of the University of California Library. The typewriter was on a timer connected to a change slot. For one dime Bradbury got thirty minutes of typing. (He spent $9.80 to complete the first draft).
When he wasn't typing furiously against the clock, Bradbury would go upstairs to explore the library:
There I strolled, lost in love, down the corridors, and through the stacks, touching books, pulling volumes out, turning pages, thrusting volumes back, drowning in all the good stuffs that are the essence of the libraries. What a place, don't you agree, to write a novel about burning books in the Future.
Bradbury had more than just a love affair with books. For him they are the backbone of civilization as illustrated by a statement he made in an interview published in the 50th Anniversary Edition of Fahrenheit 451:
Let's imagine there's an earthquake tomorrow in the average university town. If only two buildings remained intact at the end of the earthquake, what would they have to be in order to rebuild everything that had been lost? Number one would be the medical building, because you need that to help people survive, to heal injuries and sickness. The other building would be the library. All the other buildings are contained in that one. People could go into the library and get all the books they needed in literature or social economics or politics or engineering and take the books out on the lawn and sit down and read. Reading is at the center of our lives. The library is our brain. Without the library, you have no civilization (2).
It's no wonder that one of Bradbury's most famous quotes is: There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
Today's Challenge: Words on Fire
Every love affair with books begins with a love affair with words. The list of 10 words below are all found in Fahrenheit 451. See if you can match each word with its correct definition.
cacophony
tactile
olfactory
litterateur
scythe
filigree
cadence
oblivion
verbiage
teem
1. To be full of things; to swarm.
2. Harsh, jarring sound; noise.
3. Related to the sense of touch.
4. Someone devoted to the study of literature.
5. The state of being forgotten.
6. Excess words.
7. Delicate, ornamental work made from twisted wire of gold or silver.
8. Rhythmic; expressive.
9. A bladed toll with a long bent handle, used for cutting or mowing.
10. Related to the sense of smell (3).
Quote of the Day: The television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little. --Ray Bradbury
Answers: 1. teem 2. cacophony 3. tactile 4. litterateur 5. oblivion 6. verbiage 7. filigree 8. cadence 9. scythe 10. olfactory
1- About Ray Bradbury
http://www.raybradbury.com/bio.html
2 - Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. The 50th Anniversary Edition. New York: Random House.
3. Fahrenheit 451 Vocabulary List.
http://www.monmouth.com/~literature/f451/fahrenheit_451_vocabulary_list.htm
He began writing full time in 1943, publishing a number of short stories in various periodicals. His first success came in 1950 when he published The Martian Chronicles, a novel made up of a number of Bradbury's short stories about the human colonization of Mars (1).
In 1953, he published his most popular and critically acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451, a story about a dark future in which books are illegal, and instead of putting out fires, firemen answer calls to burn illegal caches of books. The main character is one of these firemen, Guy Montag. Instead of reading, the general public immerse themselves in pleasure, watching television screens that take up three of the four walls in their homes and listening to seashell radios that fit in their ears. Like Winston Smith in George Orwell's 1984, Guy Montag begins to question his job and the entire status quo of the society in which he lives. He begins to become curious about the books he's burning. However Montag's curiosity and his books betray him, and the firemen one day arrive to burn his home and his books.
Montag flees the city and comes upon a group of educated but homeless men who each memorize a great work of literature or philosophy. When the time comes to return to the city and rebuild civilization from the ashes of burned books, these men will be ready to play their part. Montag will join them with his book, Ecclesiastes.
Bradbury published over 30 books, almost 600 short stories, as well as a number of poems, essays, and plays. Along with Fahrenheit 451, his most read book, his short stores are published in numerous anthologies and textbooks.
Fahrenheit 451 began as a short story called "The Fireman" published in Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine in 1950. Bradbury's publisher then asked him to expand the story into a novel in 1953. The first draft of the novel was completed in a typing room located in the basement of the University of California Library. The typewriter was on a timer connected to a change slot. For one dime Bradbury got thirty minutes of typing. (He spent $9.80 to complete the first draft).
When he wasn't typing furiously against the clock, Bradbury would go upstairs to explore the library:
There I strolled, lost in love, down the corridors, and through the stacks, touching books, pulling volumes out, turning pages, thrusting volumes back, drowning in all the good stuffs that are the essence of the libraries. What a place, don't you agree, to write a novel about burning books in the Future.
Bradbury had more than just a love affair with books. For him they are the backbone of civilization as illustrated by a statement he made in an interview published in the 50th Anniversary Edition of Fahrenheit 451:
Let's imagine there's an earthquake tomorrow in the average university town. If only two buildings remained intact at the end of the earthquake, what would they have to be in order to rebuild everything that had been lost? Number one would be the medical building, because you need that to help people survive, to heal injuries and sickness. The other building would be the library. All the other buildings are contained in that one. People could go into the library and get all the books they needed in literature or social economics or politics or engineering and take the books out on the lawn and sit down and read. Reading is at the center of our lives. The library is our brain. Without the library, you have no civilization (2).
It's no wonder that one of Bradbury's most famous quotes is: There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
Today's Challenge: Words on Fire
Every love affair with books begins with a love affair with words. The list of 10 words below are all found in Fahrenheit 451. See if you can match each word with its correct definition.
cacophony
tactile
olfactory
litterateur
scythe
filigree
cadence
oblivion
verbiage
teem
1. To be full of things; to swarm.
2. Harsh, jarring sound; noise.
3. Related to the sense of touch.
4. Someone devoted to the study of literature.
5. The state of being forgotten.
6. Excess words.
7. Delicate, ornamental work made from twisted wire of gold or silver.
8. Rhythmic; expressive.
9. A bladed toll with a long bent handle, used for cutting or mowing.
10. Related to the sense of smell (3).
Quote of the Day: The television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little. --Ray Bradbury
Answers: 1. teem 2. cacophony 3. tactile 4. litterateur 5. oblivion 6. verbiage 7. filigree 8. cadence 9. scythe 10. olfactory
1- About Ray Bradbury
http://www.raybradbury.com/bio.html
2 - Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. The 50th Anniversary Edition. New York: Random House.
3. Fahrenheit 451 Vocabulary List.
http://www.monmouth.com/~literature/f451/fahrenheit_451_vocabulary_list.htm
Saturday, August 18, 2007
August 18: CliffsNotes Day
Today is the birthday of Cliff Hillegass, the founder of CliffsNotes. Working for a college bookstore in the 1930s, Hillegass developed contacts with a Toronto books seller named Jack Cole, who published guides in Canada called "Cole’s Notes." Years later Cole suggested to Hillegrass that an American version of Cole’s Notes might be a good idea for U.S. students.
In August 1958, Hillegass took out a $4,000 loan and began CliffsNotes with his first title: Hamlet. He continued by publishing 15 more guides to Shakespeare’s plays. At the beginning, the guides were simply Cole’s Notes repackaged with an new cover: Cliff’s characteristic, and now famous, yellow and black cover.
In fact, Cliffsnotes have become so popular and recognizable that they have become a part of the English language. For example, you might hear someone say, "Just give me the Cliffsnotes version," meaning: "Give me a short summary instead of all the details."
Hillegass never intended his guides to just summarize the classics or replace the reading of the classics. Nevertheless his work has spawned numerous imitators, to the point that test prep and reading guides have become a multi-million dollar industry. Fairtest.org estimates that the amount spent on test prep material for the SAT alone amounts to $100 million dollars annually.
Hillegass sold his business to Hungry Minds, Inc. in 1999 for $14 million dollars. However, CliffsNotes.com still carries the following message from its founder:
Cliff's Message to Students
A thorough appreciation of literature allows no short cuts. By using CliffsNotes responsibly, reviewing past criticism of a literary work, and examining fresh points of view, you can establish a unique connection with a work of literature and can take a more active part in a key goal of education: redefining and applying classic wisdom to current and future problems.
—Cliff Hillegass
Today’s Challenge: First Impressions
The editors of CliffsNotes put together a list of the ‘Ten Titles that Every Adult Should Read.’ See if you can match each of the opening lines below with the appropriate title from the list.
1. This is the story of Achilles’ rage.
2. Robert Cohn was once the middleweight boxing champion of Princeton.
3. Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.
4. 124 was spiteful.
5. When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor ....
6. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
7. "Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes."
8. "Who’s there?"
9. Call me Ishmael.
10. Who is John Galt?
A. A Tale of Two Cities
B. The Sun Also Rises
C. War and Peace
D. Walden
E. The Sound and the Fury
F. Moby Dick
G. Beloved
H. The Iliad
I. Atlas Shrugged
J. Hamlet
Quote of the Day: Obstacles are a natural part of life, just as boulders are a natural part of the course of the river. The river does not complain or get depressed because there are boulders in its path. --I Ching
Answers: 1. H, 2. B, 3. E, 4. G, 5. D, 6. A, 7. C, 8. J, 9. F, 10. I
In August 1958, Hillegass took out a $4,000 loan and began CliffsNotes with his first title: Hamlet. He continued by publishing 15 more guides to Shakespeare’s plays. At the beginning, the guides were simply Cole’s Notes repackaged with an new cover: Cliff’s characteristic, and now famous, yellow and black cover.
In fact, Cliffsnotes have become so popular and recognizable that they have become a part of the English language. For example, you might hear someone say, "Just give me the Cliffsnotes version," meaning: "Give me a short summary instead of all the details."
Hillegass never intended his guides to just summarize the classics or replace the reading of the classics. Nevertheless his work has spawned numerous imitators, to the point that test prep and reading guides have become a multi-million dollar industry. Fairtest.org estimates that the amount spent on test prep material for the SAT alone amounts to $100 million dollars annually.
Hillegass sold his business to Hungry Minds, Inc. in 1999 for $14 million dollars. However, CliffsNotes.com still carries the following message from its founder:
Cliff's Message to Students
A thorough appreciation of literature allows no short cuts. By using CliffsNotes responsibly, reviewing past criticism of a literary work, and examining fresh points of view, you can establish a unique connection with a work of literature and can take a more active part in a key goal of education: redefining and applying classic wisdom to current and future problems.
—Cliff Hillegass
Today’s Challenge: First Impressions
The editors of CliffsNotes put together a list of the ‘Ten Titles that Every Adult Should Read.’ See if you can match each of the opening lines below with the appropriate title from the list.
1. This is the story of Achilles’ rage.
2. Robert Cohn was once the middleweight boxing champion of Princeton.
3. Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.
4. 124 was spiteful.
5. When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor ....
6. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
7. "Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes."
8. "Who’s there?"
9. Call me Ishmael.
10. Who is John Galt?
A. A Tale of Two Cities
B. The Sun Also Rises
C. War and Peace
D. Walden
E. The Sound and the Fury
F. Moby Dick
G. Beloved
H. The Iliad
I. Atlas Shrugged
J. Hamlet
Quote of the Day: Obstacles are a natural part of life, just as boulders are a natural part of the course of the river. The river does not complain or get depressed because there are boulders in its path. --I Ching
Answers: 1. H, 2. B, 3. E, 4. G, 5. D, 6. A, 7. C, 8. J, 9. F, 10. I
Thursday, August 09, 2007
August 9: Walden Day
Today is the anniversary of the publication of Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Two thousand copies were printed and put on sale for $1 each on August 9, 1854.
It took five years to sell those first thousand copies, but today Walden is one of the all-time best sellers in American literary history. It has also sold well overseas and has been translated into over 20 languages.
In his essay "Five Ways of Looking at Walden," Professor Walter Harding (1917-1996) talks about the different reasons that Walden has appealed to readers through the years. Below Harding's five points are summarized; to read his full essay, see the footnote at the end of this post.
1. Walden's first appeal was as a nature book. In an age of American progress and expansion, Thoreau left the city to live in the woods for two years and commune with nature. In today's modern age Thoreau reminds us that nature provides us with infinite metaphors for understanding our own existence. He reminds us to watch for signs of the changing of the season. In his own famous words from Walden, he explains why returning to nature is so important:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.
2. The second appeal of Walden is its lessons on how to live life more simply. This aspect of Thoreau's work is especially relevant to the modern reader who is mired in possessions and the fast pace of the consumer culture.
Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say let your affairs be as two or three , and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and refuse other things in proportion.
3. The third appeal of Walden is its satire. Thoreau doesn't just observe life in the woods; he reflects on the life he has left in the city, and his biting commentary pokes fun at progress. Here are samples of his views on the transatlantic telegraph cable and French fashion:
We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.
4. The fourth appeal of Walden is simply the pleasure of reading great writing. Thoreau is a master the abstract and the particular. Think of how many time you have seen Thoreau quoted. The clarity of his sentences and the exactness of his word choice make Thoreau's prose eminently quotable.
Here is one example from Walden. It's a 351 word sentence from the "House-Warming" section. It would be considered long even by 19th century standards. With Thoreau at the pen though, even an average reader can follow the sentence's path from beginning to end:
I sometimes dream of a larger and more populous house, standing in a golden age, of enduring materials, and without gingerbread work, which shall consist of only one room, a vast, rude, substantial, primitive hall, without ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters and purlins supporting a sort of lower heaven over one's head, — useful to keep off rain and snow, where the king and queen posts stand out to receive your homage, when you have done reverence to the prostrate Saturn of an older dynasty on stepping over the sill; a cavernous house, wherein you must reach up a torch upon a pole to see the roof; where some may live in the fireplace, some in the recess of a window, and some on settles, some at one end of the hall, some at another, and some aloft on rafters with the spiders, if they choose; a house which you have got into when you have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over; where the weary traveler may wash, and eat, and converse, and sleep, without further journey; such a shelter as you would be glad to reach in a tempestuous night, containing all the essentials of a house, and nothing for housekeeping; where you can see all the treasures of the house at one view, and everything hangs upon its peg that man should use; at once kitchen, pantry, parlor, chamber, storehouse, and garret; where you can see so necessary a thing as a barrel or a ladder, so convenient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot boil, and pay your respects to the fire that cooks your dinner, and the oven that bakes your bread, and the necessary furniture and utensils are the chief ornament where the washing is not put out. nor the fire, nor the mistress, and perhaps you are sometimes requested to move from off the trapdoor, when the cook would descend into the cellar, and so learn whether the ground is solid or hollow beneath without stamping.
Certainly not every sentence in Walden is this long, but whether writing a 2-word sentence or a 350-word sentence, Thoreau's syntax is precise and clear. Thoreau is a master of every tool of the writer's trade, including sentence variety.
5. The fifth appeal of Walden is its spiritual content. Here I'll quote Professor Harding's words:
It is a major thesis of Walden that the time has come for a spiritual rebirth — a renewal and
rededication of our lives to higher things. It is true that we have progressed a long way from the status of the caveman. But our progress has been for the most part material rather than spiritual. We have improved our means, but not our ends. We can unquestionably travel faster than our ancestors, but we continue to waste our time in trivial pursuits when we get there. We have cut down the number hours of labor required to keep ourselves alive, but we have not learned what to do with the time thus saved. We devote the major part of our national energy to devising new ways of blowing up the rest of the world and ignore attempts to make better men of ourselves.
Thoreau is sometimes mislabeled as a misanthrope. Although he does at times lament man's state, he nevertheless sees man's potential for better things. At the conclusion of Walden, for example, his words sound like a sermon from a pastor who is full of hope for his congregation:
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them (1).
Today's Challenge: Words From Walden
Walden rewards the reader in many ways. One of these rewards is Thoreau's word choice. Professor Harding says the following about Thoreau's diction:
Perhaps the most noticeable characteristic of Thoreau's word choice is the size of his vocabulary. Walden is guaranteed to send the conscientious student to the dictionary. In a random sampling we find such words as integument, umbrageous, deliquium, aliment, fluviatile, and periplus. Yet Thoreau cannot be termed ostentatious in his word-usage. He simply searches for and uses the best possible word for each situation (1).
Below are 8 sentences from Walden. See if you can match up each of the 8 words in bold with its appropriate synonym listed below.
1. In the course which our ancestors took there was a show of prudence at least.
2. It may be guessed that I reduce almost the whole advantage of holding this superfluous property as a fund in store against the future.
3. Before winter I built a chimney, and shingled the sides of my house, which were already impervious to rain.
4. I'd like to emulate my father's achievements in track and field and bring home a few trophies for display.
5. Why should our life be in any respect provincial?
6. I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another.
7. If we are merely loquacious and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together.
8. It was particularly conspicuous when the grass was moist with dew.
The synonyms: abundant, closed, imitate, narrow, obvious, talkative, unnecessary, wisdom
Quote of the Day: I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. --Henry David Thoreau.
Answers:
1. wisdom 2. unnecessary 3. closed 4. imitate 5. narrow 6. abundant 7. talkative 8. obvious
1- Harding, Walter. Five Ways of Looking at Walden. Massachusetts Review (Autumn 1962) ca. 1986.http://www.walden.org/Institute/thoreau/about2/H/WalterHarding/FiveWays.htm
It took five years to sell those first thousand copies, but today Walden is one of the all-time best sellers in American literary history. It has also sold well overseas and has been translated into over 20 languages.
In his essay "Five Ways of Looking at Walden," Professor Walter Harding (1917-1996) talks about the different reasons that Walden has appealed to readers through the years. Below Harding's five points are summarized; to read his full essay, see the footnote at the end of this post.
1. Walden's first appeal was as a nature book. In an age of American progress and expansion, Thoreau left the city to live in the woods for two years and commune with nature. In today's modern age Thoreau reminds us that nature provides us with infinite metaphors for understanding our own existence. He reminds us to watch for signs of the changing of the season. In his own famous words from Walden, he explains why returning to nature is so important:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.
2. The second appeal of Walden is its lessons on how to live life more simply. This aspect of Thoreau's work is especially relevant to the modern reader who is mired in possessions and the fast pace of the consumer culture.
Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say let your affairs be as two or three , and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and refuse other things in proportion.
3. The third appeal of Walden is its satire. Thoreau doesn't just observe life in the woods; he reflects on the life he has left in the city, and his biting commentary pokes fun at progress. Here are samples of his views on the transatlantic telegraph cable and French fashion:
We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.
4. The fourth appeal of Walden is simply the pleasure of reading great writing. Thoreau is a master the abstract and the particular. Think of how many time you have seen Thoreau quoted. The clarity of his sentences and the exactness of his word choice make Thoreau's prose eminently quotable.
Here is one example from Walden. It's a 351 word sentence from the "House-Warming" section. It would be considered long even by 19th century standards. With Thoreau at the pen though, even an average reader can follow the sentence's path from beginning to end:
I sometimes dream of a larger and more populous house, standing in a golden age, of enduring materials, and without gingerbread work, which shall consist of only one room, a vast, rude, substantial, primitive hall, without ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters and purlins supporting a sort of lower heaven over one's head, — useful to keep off rain and snow, where the king and queen posts stand out to receive your homage, when you have done reverence to the prostrate Saturn of an older dynasty on stepping over the sill; a cavernous house, wherein you must reach up a torch upon a pole to see the roof; where some may live in the fireplace, some in the recess of a window, and some on settles, some at one end of the hall, some at another, and some aloft on rafters with the spiders, if they choose; a house which you have got into when you have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over; where the weary traveler may wash, and eat, and converse, and sleep, without further journey; such a shelter as you would be glad to reach in a tempestuous night, containing all the essentials of a house, and nothing for housekeeping; where you can see all the treasures of the house at one view, and everything hangs upon its peg that man should use; at once kitchen, pantry, parlor, chamber, storehouse, and garret; where you can see so necessary a thing as a barrel or a ladder, so convenient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot boil, and pay your respects to the fire that cooks your dinner, and the oven that bakes your bread, and the necessary furniture and utensils are the chief ornament where the washing is not put out. nor the fire, nor the mistress, and perhaps you are sometimes requested to move from off the trapdoor, when the cook would descend into the cellar, and so learn whether the ground is solid or hollow beneath without stamping.
Certainly not every sentence in Walden is this long, but whether writing a 2-word sentence or a 350-word sentence, Thoreau's syntax is precise and clear. Thoreau is a master of every tool of the writer's trade, including sentence variety.
5. The fifth appeal of Walden is its spiritual content. Here I'll quote Professor Harding's words:
It is a major thesis of Walden that the time has come for a spiritual rebirth — a renewal and
rededication of our lives to higher things. It is true that we have progressed a long way from the status of the caveman. But our progress has been for the most part material rather than spiritual. We have improved our means, but not our ends. We can unquestionably travel faster than our ancestors, but we continue to waste our time in trivial pursuits when we get there. We have cut down the number hours of labor required to keep ourselves alive, but we have not learned what to do with the time thus saved. We devote the major part of our national energy to devising new ways of blowing up the rest of the world and ignore attempts to make better men of ourselves.
Thoreau is sometimes mislabeled as a misanthrope. Although he does at times lament man's state, he nevertheless sees man's potential for better things. At the conclusion of Walden, for example, his words sound like a sermon from a pastor who is full of hope for his congregation:
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them (1).
Today's Challenge: Words From Walden
Walden rewards the reader in many ways. One of these rewards is Thoreau's word choice. Professor Harding says the following about Thoreau's diction:
Perhaps the most noticeable characteristic of Thoreau's word choice is the size of his vocabulary. Walden is guaranteed to send the conscientious student to the dictionary. In a random sampling we find such words as integument, umbrageous, deliquium, aliment, fluviatile, and periplus. Yet Thoreau cannot be termed ostentatious in his word-usage. He simply searches for and uses the best possible word for each situation (1).
Below are 8 sentences from Walden. See if you can match up each of the 8 words in bold with its appropriate synonym listed below.
1. In the course which our ancestors took there was a show of prudence at least.
2. It may be guessed that I reduce almost the whole advantage of holding this superfluous property as a fund in store against the future.
3. Before winter I built a chimney, and shingled the sides of my house, which were already impervious to rain.
4. I'd like to emulate my father's achievements in track and field and bring home a few trophies for display.
5. Why should our life be in any respect provincial?
6. I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another.
7. If we are merely loquacious and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together.
8. It was particularly conspicuous when the grass was moist with dew.
The synonyms: abundant, closed, imitate, narrow, obvious, talkative, unnecessary, wisdom
Quote of the Day: I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. --Henry David Thoreau.
Answers:
1. wisdom 2. unnecessary 3. closed 4. imitate 5. narrow 6. abundant 7. talkative 8. obvious
1- Harding, Walter. Five Ways of Looking at Walden. Massachusetts Review (Autumn 1962) ca. 1986.http://www.walden.org/Institute/thoreau/about2/H/WalterHarding/FiveWays.htm
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
July 31: Harry Potter Day
Today is the birthday of the literary character Harry Potter and Harry's creator: J.K. (Joanne Kathleen) Rowling. The British author was born on July 31, 1965.
The idea of a story about boy wizard came to Rowling one day on a long train ride from Manchester to London in the Summer of 1990. It took seven years, however, to bring Harry Potter to life in a published book. After rejections from several publishers, Bloomsbury Children's Books published Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in June 1997.
After the publication of Philospher's Stone, success and awards came fast for Rowling. She sold the American rights to her books to Scholastic Books, and quit her job teaching French to write full time.
Sales of the seven books in Harry Potter saga have reached unprecedented numbers. Unbelievably, Harry Potter titles are number one, two, and three on the Amazon.com bestseller list for the decade (2000-2005). Potter books have sold more than 300 million copies and have been translated into more than 30 languages (1).
In 2003, Rowling achieved the rare distinction of having one of her coined words added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) -- a very rare achievement for a living author.
The word is muggle, defined as:
a person who possesses no magical powers. Hence in allusive and extended uses: a person who lacks a particular skill or skills, or who is regarded as inferior in some way.
The editors of the OED had little choice but to include the word in the dictionary after considering the seemingly universal popularity of Rowling's books and the fact that the word was being used everyday by people all over the world. A similar feat was accomplished by JRR Tolkien when the OED included his word "hobbit" in the 1976 edition of the OED. Tolkien, however, had died before seeing his word in the dictionary.
Today's Challenge: I Put a Spell on You
The made-up language of spells in J. K. Rowling's books is not a totally random creation. Hidden in the spells are word parts that resemble Latin and Greek roots. Given 7 roots below, along with the Potter spell, and common English words with the same root, see if you can identify the English translation of each root.
1. Root: LEV Wingardium Leviosa! Common Words: lever, elevator, levee, elevate
2. Root: LOCO Locomotor Mortis! Common Words: locomotive, locate, dislocate, allocate
3. Root: PEL Expelliarmus! Common Words: propel, expel, repel, compel
4. Root: LUM Lumos! Common Words: illuminate, lucid, bioluminescence, elucidate
5. Root: FID Fidelus! Common Words: confide, confidence, fidelity, infidel
6. Root: PATR Expecto Patronus! Common Words: paternal, patron, patronize, patriot
7. Root: FIN Finite incantatem! Common Words: infinite, define, affinity, infinitesimal
A. To Push
B. To Raise Up, Make Lighter
C. Trust
D. Father
E. Place
F. End or Limit
G. Light (3)
Quote of the Day: The book is really about the power of the imagination. What Harry is learning to do is to develop his full potential. Wizardry is just the analogy I use. --J. K. Rowling
Answers: 1. B. To Raise Up, Make Lighter 2. E Place 3. A To Push 4. G Light 5. C Trust 6. D Father 7. F End or Limit
2 - 'Muggle' Goes Into Oxford English Dictionary. BBC Newsround 24 March 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/uk/newsid_2882000/2882895.stm
3 - Resource Room: Free-spirited Structured Multisensory Learning. Reading Comprehension. Vocabulary words parts index (Greek and Latin Roots) http://www.resourceroom.net/comprehension/wordparts/index.asp
Monday, July 30, 2007
July 30: Paperback Day
Today is the anniversary of the publication of the first modern paperback books. On July 30, 1935, Penguin Books issued its first 10 paperback titles.
Penguin owes its success to a German publisher, Tachnitz, which had been publishing paperbound books in a variety of languages, including English, as early as 1845. In 1931 an English language offshoot of Tachnitz was established in London. Wanting a name for the company that could be understood in a variety of languages, the German company selected the name Albatross Books.
Albatross had early success in selling English books, but when the Nazis seized the company's presses in Germany, the company failed.
The brief success of Albatross was noted by Allan Lane, the president of England's Bodley Head Publishing House. Lane approached the head buyers of F.W. Woolworth, a chain of retail stores, with the idea of publishing ten literary titles in paperback in the Woolworth stores at a cost of sixpence each, about the same price as a pack of cigarettes. Imitating the Albatross model, Allan called his company Penguin Books.
Lane's plan doesn't sound very radical today, but in the 1930s books were sold in bookstores, not retails stores. In addition, the ten titles Lane proposed were considered too highbrow for the lower classes, the main buyers of paperbacks.
Here are the titles and authors of the first Penguin paperbacks:
1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie
2. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, Dorothy L Sayers
3. Gone to Earth, Mary Webb
4. William, E. H. Young
5. Carnival, Compton Mackenzie
6. Poet's Pub, Eric Linklater
7. Madame Claire, Susan Ertz
8. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
9. Twenty-five, Beverley Nichols
10. Ariel, Andre Maurois
The conventional wisdom of the publishing world was wrong, however, and Lane's plan was a rousing success. Paperbacks became all the rage in England. By the end of the year over 3 million books had been sold and by 1937, Penguin paperbacks were being sold from vending machines at train stations.
Today's Challenge: Paperback Writers Try to match up the first sentences below with the list of first 10 titles release by Penguin Books.
1. Small feckless clouds were hurried across the vast untroubled sky - shepherdless, futile, imponderable - and were torn to fragments on the fangs of the mountains, so ending their ephemeral adventures with nothing of their fugitive existence left but a few tears.
2. The intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as "The Styles Case" has now somewhat subsided.
3. What in the world, Wimsey, are you doing in this Morgue?" demanded Captain Fentiman, flinging aside the "Evening Banner" with air of a man released from an irksome duty.
4. If you wish to be relieved from the worries of housekeeping; if you wish to cultivate the society of retired army folk, or that of blameless spinsterhood, ask for a room (inclusive terms) at the Kensington Park Hotel, Kensington.
5. In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.
Quote of the Day: Paperbacks blink in and out of print like fireflies. They also, as older collectors have ruefully discovered, fade and fall apart even more rapidly than their owners. --Paul Gray
Answers: 1. Gone to Earth 2. The Mysterious Affair at Styles 3. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club4. Madame Claire 5. A Farewell to Arms
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
