A Lying Liar of a Comment

Someone posted this comment on my review of Dave Cullen’s Columbine on www.my52books.com. I’m not sure the need for the insults, the double slurs (lying liar, and calling me an idiot twice!), and I’m interested in what this guy had a problem with both in my review and in the book itself.

The irony is twofold here:
1. I would be eager to hear how I misunderstood the events, and here was his stage to correct any misconceptions.
2. I read a 400-page book on the issue. I think that gives me more than a “superficial surface knowledge” of the subject.

How sad and pathetic indeed.

Read Full Post »

Missing Holden Caulfield? I Have a Solution!

If you need comforting during this time since the passing of J. D. Salinger, then why not go running headlong into the arms of the best movie version of The Catcher in the Rye?

As you may already know, there is actually no movie version of Catcher, as Salinger was fiercely protective of his work. After seeing what he considered a botched job of a film version of his short story, “Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut,” he refused other adaptations to be made. However, there is one movie that somehow avoided detection by the swarm of lawyers that Jerome D. had at his disposal.

In 2002, Burt Steers (recently made 17 Again) wrote and directed Igby Goes Down starring Kieran Culkins, Jeff Goldblum, and Claire Danes. Igby closely follows the character and plot line of Catcher that I’m surprised it remained outside litigation. I just went to IMDB.com to see if the popularity shot up after all this talk in the news of Holden, but it remains unchanged. I’m not the only one to see this connection, am I?

It’s rated R for lots of sex, swearing, and drug use, but that’s what a film adaptation of Catcher in the Rye should be rated, I suppose.

I suggest that you put this in your Netflix queue now to avoid the rush. Holden and Igby will thank you for your time, then they’d both call you a phony.

Read Full Post »

Salinger Dies

I’m sad to here this, even though the guy lived a long (albeit bizarre) life. Catcher in the Rye is still my favorite book to teach. It’s one of only a handful that all the students read. There’s something about Holden that connected to students today just as he did in the 1950s.

There’s been talk of lots of unreleased writing that will be published after his death, and I’m one of many eager readers who would like to see more.

In the meantime, I’ll wait to watch how much my early copy of Catcher goes up in value. I have a copy that has Salinger’s picture on the back, one that he demanded to have removed. At one time, it was going for over $1000. Imagine if I had a J.D. Salinger bobblehead or something else kitschy.

Full article here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/books/01/28/salinger.obit/index.html?hpt=T2

Read Full Post »

Why I Will Not Buy a Kindle

“Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity… we cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort, their ready access, reassurance.” -A.E. Newton

Read Full Post »

Reading Through the Bible in a Year

As you consider ways to reading through the Bible in 2010, consider these plans. I want to encourage you to pick a specific plan to help to keep you accountable on track. Any plan will help with your goal.

I’m attaching the plan that Kristie and I did this year, and I will start again tomorrow. It’s the Book at a Time. I prefer reading through one book at a time rather than reading one chapter from three different books. Kristie is reading through the NT with the 5x5x5.

Discipleship Journal by Navigators

http://www.navpress.com/dj/content.aspx?id=138

This had both the Book at a Time and the 5x5x5 plan which reads through the NT

A blog entry with an overview of plans

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2009/12/30/bible-reading-plans-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+between2worlds+%28Between+Two+Worlds%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

ESV Plans (including links to daily podcasts of the selections)

http://www.esv.org/biblereadingplans

Listening Through the Bible in 75 hours

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2009/12/30/esv-reading-plans-as-podcasts-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+between2worlds+%28Between+Two+Worlds%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

I hope this helps with whichever goal you set.

Read Full Post »

How to Read More

Advice from a bibliophile on how to read more in one's daily life.

http://spurgeon.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/tip-1-capture-reading-time/

Read Full Post »

Reading Through the Bible in a Year

Here is a link to many plans to read through the Bible in a year. There are 10 under ESV Study Bible plans that are set up to email you the daily text.

http://theologica.blogspot.com/2008/12/bible-reading-plans.html

Read Full Post »

Flannery O’Connor

Flannery O’Connor has been one of my favorite authors for years, so much so, that I want to name our yet-to-be-conceived daughter “Flannery.” (Don’t judge: take a look at those vapid names you’ve named your children!) After reading and teaching her over the years, I’ve never heard her speak.

Until this morning.

I found this blog post that has two readings by Flannery, one on Southern Gothic and the other a reading of her “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” At the very least, download and listen to “Good Man,” the oft-anthologized story that has a callous murderer as the Christ figure: “She would of been a good woman,” The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

Here’s the link to the blog, Morning Oil.

Read Full Post »

What Would Lewis Have to Say about This?

I found this curious comment in the shipping section for this used
book. We can't have those prison Christians joyful, can we?

Read Full Post »

Famous First Lines

Match the title of the story/novel with its first line.

(taken from Art Peterson’s The Writer’s Workout Book)

A. Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury

B. Peter Pan- J. M. Barrie

C. Flowers for Algernon- Daniel Keys

D. One Hundred Years of Solitude- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

E. Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man- James Joyce

F. 1984- George Orwell

G. The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald

H. Call of the Wild- Jack London

I. Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte

J. The Hounds of Baskerville- Arthur Conan Doyle

K. The Metamorphosis- Franz Kafka

_______Dr. Strauss say I should rite down what I think and remember and evreything that happins to me from now on.

_______It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.

_______Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.

_______When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.

_______It was a pleasure to burn.

_______In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me sane advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

_______Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table.

_______There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

_______All children except one, grow up.

_______Once upon a time and a very gootime it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named tuckoo…

_______Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

Read Full Post »